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Apr 23, 2021 By Mark Redfern

On Monday, Scottish electro-pop trio CHVRCHES shared a brand new song, “He Said She Said,” which is about the modern challenges of being a woman. Now they have shared a video for the song. Scott Kiernan directed the video, which features a metaphorical revolving door. Watch it below.

Kiernan had this to say about the video in a press release: “The revolving door is metaphorical to the circular nature of a manipulative power dynamic, and the looping thoughts that go along with feeling trapped in it. But this door also represents a film developing tank here: it creates “a picture” through agitation. That agitation can be malevolent, by some controlling, dominating force as in an abusive relationship, or it can be that of a protest—a positive force to reclaim one’s agency.”

CHVRCHES collectively had this to add: “Working with Scott has been really exciting as we share a visual viewpoint. He really understood and elevated our references. We found out about his work through a short film he made for Moog and were just obsessed with his aesthetic and way of telling stories. He has creative directed everything for this new era of the band and we can’t wait for CHVRCHES fans to see the story unfold…”

The song was recorded remotely during the pandemic, with Lauren Mayberry and Martin Doherty in Los Angeles and Iain Cook in Glasgow. “He Said She Said” was one of our Songs of the Week today.

Mayberry had this to say about the song in a previous press release: “Like everyone, I’ve had a lot of time to think and reflect over the past year; to examine experiences I had previously glossed over or deeply buried. I feel like I have spent a lot of my life (personally and professionally) performing the uncomfortable balancing act that is expected of women and it gets more confusing and exhausting the older I get. Be successful but only in the way we want you to be. Speak up for yourself but not so loudly that you steal men’s thunder. Be attractive but only for the benefit of men, and certainly don’t be vain. Strive to be The Hot Sad Girl but don’t actually be sad in a way that’s inconvenient for anyone. Be smart but not smart enough to ask for more than what you’re being given…. ‘He Said She Said’ is my way of reckoning with things I’ve accepted that I know I shouldn’t have. Things I pretended weren’t damaging to me. It was the first song we wrote when we started back up, and the opening line (‘He said, You bore me to death’) was the first lyric that came out. All the verse lines are tongue-in-cheek or paraphrased versions of things that have actually been said to me by men in my life. Being a woman is fucking exhausting and it felt better to scream it into a pop song than scream it into the void. After the past year, I think we can all relate to feeling like we’re losing our minds.”

CHVRCHES’ last album, Love Is Dead, came out in May 2018 via Glassnote. It was their third album. A press release says that “He Said She Said” is “the first fruits of their labor” from their recent recording sessions, suggesting that it could be the first taste of a new album or EP.

In 2019 CHVRCHES shared the new song, “Death Stranding,” taken from the soundtrack of the PlayStation4 game of the same name.

In November 2018 CHVRCHES also released the five-song Hansa Session EP that was recorded in Berlin’s Hansa Studios, the same studio where David Bowie recorded his iconic Berlin trilogy with Brian Eno in the 1970s (Low, “Heroes”, Lodger).

CHVRCHES were on the cover of one of our print issues in 2015 and you can read the in-depth 8-page 5,600-word cover story feature on the band here. You can also read our bonus digital magazine Q&A with them here.

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