Don't Beat the Girl Out of My Boy

Album: Hunter (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • Hunter is an unflinchingly queer album. Fierce and sensual, it finds Anna Calvi exploring ideas of sexuality, societal norms and gender identity. This feverish rocker is about the idea of happiness as an act of defiance against her critics. Calvi explained to NME:

    "When you're in a queer relationship, you feel so great and so happy that you would defend that relationship with everything that you've got. There's a bravery to face off any criticism for what you feel is a very pure and beautiful love for someone."
  • At one point in the song, Calvi exclaims a very high shouting note inspired in part by Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig In The Sky." The singer said it was "also about not wanting to be contained or told that what I felt was intrinsically wrong - just because I don't fit this heteronormative world that we live in."
  • The song's music video was directed by Kendrick Lamar collaborator William Kennedy and choreographed by Aaron Sillis, who has worked with the likes of FKA Twigs. In the clip, Calvi is surrounded by dancers who move her body around in a variety of ways. Calvi recalled to Q magazine of Sillis:

    "I was really impressed by his ability to dance. To be able to have so much freedom and control of your body must be amazing."

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