SZA's Nobody Gets Me

I've given myself the task of writing about one song a week for 2024 because, well, I think it'd be fun.

SZA's Nobody Gets Me

Yes, it's Joni Mitchell month, but I've decided to take a break to wish SZA a happy birthday and, hilariously, Joni a belated birthday.

The interesting thing about SZA's "SOS" is that it's split between third-person and first-person writing. "Seek & Destroy", "Snooze" and "Love Language", for example, are basically third-person. Don't let the use of "I" fool you: SZA is detaching herself, analyzing herself from outside of her body, analyzing the situation between her and her ex as objectively as she can. "Kill Bill", her fiery opener, "Forgiveless", fiery closer, "Special", 'nother great song, and the subject of today, "Nobody Gets Me", are first-person, are very messy, and very biased. These are by far my favorite songs, though "Snooze" is so. Fucking. Good.

When she sings,

Took a long vacation, no makeup, just jersey, you were balls deep, now we beefing, now we butt naked at the MGM,

I get shivers. I'm a man. Understandably when women talk about the female experience of sex, I shut my brain off. I just don't get it. I also don't like to look at another person's balls. But when she says these lines, I get it. I'm her. Is it the way she swoons you with the first line, makes you sympathize with her and her loneliness, is it the way she describes the unceasing flow of memories in the second, that reminds us of our reminisces? I know at least why I shiver: it's because she's so damn good.

So wasted, screaming "Fuck that", blurry now, but I meant it then, hurry now, baby stick it in, before the memories get to kicking in,

it's too late, I don't want to lose what's left of you.

Ooh, that rhyme within rhyme of "blurry now" and "hurry now" is perfect. For SZA, remembering is not something she does willingly; she spirals into memory and grief, and it's almost as if, before she gets caught in the whirlpool, she puts out that "but I meant it then" as a way to grab onto something solid, as helpless a gesture as it is.

I love that "so wasted, screaming Fuck that". It's such a wonderful expression of youthful verve. Most artists tend to idealize their younger lives. SZA puts it realistically and rawly, depicting it to you in its messy incarnations, while not shying that this is indeed her.

Then the pre-chorus, the "it's too late, I don't want to lose / what's left of you". No writing by me can justify it. You have to listen to it yourself. There's a particular way she enunciates each word, almost stuttering them, holding each word as precious. Perhaps she is trying to stop herself from getting to the fraught conclusion in her mind, or she is only realizing now what's important to her. In any case, the way she sings it, it's like she's holding back a dam - and the dam bursts, and the emotion comes out as a flood in the chorus:

How am I supposed to tell you, I don't want to see you with anyone but me, nobody gets me like you.

I'm gonna be real: this is the only song, ever, in my entire library of songs, in my entire lifetime of listening, I consistently get teary eyed, and it's always at this part. Don't take it from me; listen yourself how SZA sings that "I don't want to see you with anyone but me". It's so close to magic. I don't know how she pulls it off, I can't imagine, literally, any other musician pulling it off. That "I don't want" isn't loud, isn't ear-screaming, but it feels chest-bursting, it feels like the words are blossoming in her throat as the sadness bursts in her heart. It's the perfect ascent, and I can't pinpoint how it works. Then there's the "anyone but me", the "one" sung with such painful bitterness, the "but" with such bluntness as if someone struck her heart down with a hammer. The final "Nobody gets me". How many tears behind those words? How many frantic nights? To get that perfect delivery? That even I, every, single, time I replay the track sing the words myself, feel immeasurable grief, feel exactly as SZA has in those bygone days and nights? And, to reiterate: I have never experienced anything close to what SZA has experienced. There's no projection, there's nothing vicariously lived here, this is just art.

The song's outro has SZA repeat the words: "Nobody gets me, you do." Not, "Nobody gets me, [but] you do." Not, "Nobody gets me, [only] you do." The sudden shift to the "you do" is violent. I don't know if SZA intended it or she wanted to get the right measure for the line, but the lack of "but" or "only", the lack of any contradiction or hindsight, really shows how the singer believes this is fact, that her need for her ex is existential. The omission of this one. Word. Changes the whole tone of the song.

How the hell does someone distill the essence, distill the worry of life so perfectly into song, so it radiates with its complexities, and the pleasures we get from its colors, without any shallowness? This is the question of art. She answers it in its entirety here. What the fuck? Perhaps she consulted Hank Williams in Leonard's tower; certainly, these two Texans know how to sing about sadness.

I won't cover the second verse in depth, but what's notable about it is that SZA knows what details to put and leave out. Her heartbreak is easily put in a few lines: "Took me out to the ballet, / you proposed, I was on a roll, / you was feeling empty, so you left me, / now I'm stuck dealing with a deadbeat." That last line, by the way? "Stuck dealing with a deadbeat"? You sense it's not an objective fact, but SZA says it anyway. This is why SZA is jaw-droppingly good: she writes. She does not put everything on the page. She edits. She omits. She knows where to lead the audience's eyes. Granted, not every song on "SOS" is like this, but here in "Nobody Gets Me" she nails it perfectly. It does not matter who you are, you can follow her story, in the same vein, again, as you do Hank Williams. This is the modern-day version of "Your Cheatin' Heart". Penning a song as good as one of the greatest country songs ever is the biggest fucking flex I've ever seen.

Well, let me dial back my adulation a bit and try to land this discussion on stable land. I'm actually quite comfortable with where I put "SOS" on my "best of 2022" list, though after analyzing my listening recently I'd bump her up north of Elvis Costello and the Imposters' "The Boy Named If", or put that album south. It's not a contender for best album of 2022.

However. It's without a doubt the most influential album of 2022 and 2023. Quite the paradox here. I define "influential" and "best" finely. For example, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" may be the Beatles' most influential record. But it may not be their best. The Red Hot Chili Peppers may be one of the most influential bands of the '90s, so much so that Los Angeles decided to use them to promo the 2028 Summer Olympics. But it's not clear which of their albums hit which "best" lists.

I liken "SOS" to Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited": so ambitious it's hard to ignore, the artist so good the music can't help make waves. But the ambition is the greatest attribute. "SOS" is all over the place. There's kind of a storyline, but SZA's feelings are generally loosely structured. The use of acoustic guitar for "Nobody Gets Me" would be notable if it were not already used for "Blind" or "Special". The plethora of songs really hurts relistenability as you can get lost as to where you specifically are in the album. Not to compare everyone to Beyoncé - I mean, is it even fair - but the songs on her self-titled and "Lemonade" are all different, one of the signs of a veteran musician (compare the five albums leading up to "Lemonade" to SZA's one). What's surprising about "Beyoncé" is that there are fourteen tracks, and they're all different in content and style. Replayability is a huge factor when it comes to deciding "best" albums. I could ignore these qualities of "SOS" and these arguments and say, "The crowd wins", but then obviously it wouldn't be my honest opinion anymore, and the worth of a review lies substantially in its honesty.

But...when you heard "SOS" for the first time, when it was released at the tail end of 2022, you felt a seismic wave. Like, woah. Something changed. Culture changed. You just instinctually knew it. Never mind the reception "SOS" got, you had the feeling, "This is what artists are going to strive to make now." Artists will mutate SZA's themes, perhaps they'll even make records I will call "best", but SZA was here first. If we live in a culture where we're obsessed with the people who entertain us, and their "takes", then "SOS" is the guidebook for how you produce art in this environment. The music is vulnerable and still classy, the music is personal and isn't overwrought, the music is confrontational while acknowledging that humans are complex. It is the kind of thing that fits perfectly well with the "my real life vs. how I fake it" lifestyle of Instagram. If you call it stupid, then you haven't listened to the album. You aren't going "back and forth with no average dork", to quote SZA.

Which is kind of the perfect conclusion for this album: the reception is just as complex and paradoxical as the music and the artist are. That's how it should be. We will be talking about this record for years to come.