BEESWAX

Album: Maybe in Another Life... (2022)
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Songfacts®:

  • To mind your own beeswax is a slang version of the retort "mind your own business." This angsty song finds Easy Life frontman Murray Matravers warning people about being too nosy in a post-lockdown universe. "It's definitely got an attitude to it," he told Apple Music. "Everybody's so excited about being out in the world and being able to socialize and see their friends and go back to work that it's very easy to overshare without even realizing it."
  • This marks Easy Life's first fresh material since the release of their debut album Life's a Beach. The menacing track is also the first time the band has used capital letters in a song title. "'BEESWAX' is definitely the rowdiest it gets; we haven't made a punk record, but the uppercase thing felt like it mimics the sound of the music," said Matravers. "It's like, 'Pay attention, Easy Life are coming!' rather than 'Hey guys, we've got a new song, it's all lowercase, it's all really chill.'"
  • Matravers wrote the song with Fraser T Smith. The English songwriter and producer has also worked with the likes of Adele ("Set Fire To The Rain"), Stormzy ("Blinded By Your Grace, Pt. 2"), and Dave ("Black" ). He also contributed to three Life's A Beach tracks.
  • Matravers and Smith also co-produced the track. "We were trying to get something quite spooky," said the Easy Life singer. "There's only two chords and they definitely put you on edge - kind of like 'Ghost Town' by The Specials."
  • There are several theories about the origins of the phrase "mind your own beeswax." Most widely held is it started as a retort in the 1700s when women would sit by the fireplace making wax candles together.
  • The only other example we could find of a song where the singer tells someone to mind their beeswax is They Might Be Giants' "Cloisonne." Their 2011 track is about someone who keeps going on about a monster called a sleestack from the TV program Land of the Lost. The singer hasn't a clue what they're on about and repeatedly tells them to mind their own business, before exclaiming:

    I'm sick of this beeswax
    I'm sick of these second-story sleestaks

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