Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley celebrated their wedding in August 2023, on the New Jersey shore. In the latest Bleachers single, the artist and producer tells the story based on plastic soul, rock and roll and very good taste. ‘dirty wedding dress’ is the Song of the Day.
This is the second preview of Bleachers’ next project, ‘Everyone for 10 Minutes’, available on May 22 along with the album’s lead single, the romantic ‘you and forever’. Musically, ‘dirty wedding dress’ takes a totally different path, swapping the hazy atmosphere of that song for the good-natured soul of Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’. Bruce Springsteen’s touch, as always in Bleachers, is also not missing.
The song doesn’t change much throughout its almost 5-minute duration, but it is here where Jack Antonoff demonstrates his mastery as a producer. The elements of the theme are constantly added, removed and exaggerated (those screams!), making this progress without it seeming like nothing is happening. In the lyrics, Antonoff describes how the surroundings of the wedding were filled with paparazzi and onlookers: “Everyone was talking like they knew / But no, they don’t.”
Elsewhere in the song, Jack sings about how “the neighbors lost their minds” or taking away “the Saturday night blues,” referencing one of his previous albums. In the last verses, he also throws a dig at the music press: “A critic has moved to the block / He jokes that he wants royalties because I referenced him once / And I’m like: What the fuck?”
