Ch-Ching

Album: Moth (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • The lead single of Moth, "Ch-Ching" is described by Chairlift's Caroline Polachek as being about "that moment of disbelief when you're confronted with a huge opportunity or stroke of luck, and you take it and run with it - pumped full of adrenaline, but you pretend it is business as usual."

    She added: "It's the kind of miracle people move to New York City for. The audition you didn't think you'd get, the lie that accidentally works brilliantly, finding a $100 bill on the sidewalk."
  • The video was filmed along the bridges which cross New York's East River, including The Ward's Island Bridge. The idea to wear orange was intuitive. Caroline Polachek explained to Artist Direct: "Orange is the color of construction, it's what construction workers always wear, it's what the traffic cones are, the 'don't walk' signs, all these orange, sort of municipal things started coming up."

    "And it's also sort of an alert color and the song is really waving an individualistic flag, like, 'I am here. I'm doing me. I'm going to get mine.' It's really that kind of New York feeling."

    "And orange started representing that emotion to me over the course of making that video."
  • Polachek references the numerical code 27-9-9-23 both in the refrain and the post chorus. She explained to Billboard magazine: "It was the combination lock of our recording studio at the time. Apparently it's also the number of a certain Whirlpool washing machine though."

    "There are some people on the internet who have really gotten into numerology and have tried to make connections between what the washing machine means with the song [laughs] and I'm not mad at it!"
  • Chairlift embedded a number of different motifs throughout the Moth album. For example, there is a finger cymbal that plays in every single song but at a different moment in each of them.
  • Asked by MTV News why they included the 27-9-9-23 numerical code in this song's lyrics, Caroline Polachek replied: "The song sort of has the feeling like a heist. It's like the metaphor for the jewel thief taking something without permission. It's a song about individualism essentially, which is why it starts out with the cowboy whistle."

    "And I liked the idea of there being a magic number or a cheat code or a secret that's getting passed from one person to the other that's going to let you get access to something. So, that number just came in handy but it's also just fun to sing numbers instead of singing words."

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