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Length
4:44
“Once Twice Melody” is the lead single and title track of the band’s self-produced eighth studio album, a series of four chaptered releases that form their most cinematic record yet. Working with a live string ensemble for the first time, they summon a sound more surrealistic than anything on 2018’s 7, bringing to mind 1960s psychedelia, Stereolab, and Broadcast’s “Come On Let’s Go.” “Once Twice Melody” sits confidently within the duo’s canon of dream-pop references: sun and shadow, gleaming synths, sirens like those found on 2018’s “L’Inconnue.”
In the lyrics, Legrand sings of a girl placated by her own imagination, basking in the faraway places constructed by a wandering mind. Juxtaposing prismatic visuals and lax vocals, the song evokes the sensual slowness of a hot summer day, of sinking into the grass with a paleta dripping in your hand. “Nights fly by in her mind/All along the boulevard/She tries to understand/A never never land,” Legrand sings, alluding to the picture-perfect world deep within this character’s memory. But as the jagged lines across the woman’s handheld mirror in the animated video suggest, those idealizations are never fully realized. It’s an abstract reflection of a message Beach House have intimated throughout their career: Idyllic moments never last as long as our daydreams.
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