An energetic and restless song for anyone who feels as if the future has simply vanished.
“2 Vexed 2 Tired” by Uncanny Valley Girls is a song which masks its weariness with activity. Although it appears to be brief, vibrant, playful and instantly catchy, there is a more serious underlying mood present: that of burnout, frustration, monotony, and a growing difficulty in imagining the future which we had been promised. It is this contrast that makes the song so effective. Far from sounding like a conventional piece on being utterly drained, Uncanny Valley Girls provide those sensations with a lively musical backdrop, employing bouncing synths and dancehall reggae drums to generate a sense of momentum. While the rhythm continuously pushes ahead, the lyrics raise the question of whether there is in fact any place that really matters to go to. Thus, an interesting tension is produced between the body’s desire to move and the mind’s doubt about where that movement is directed. The humour of the band is immediately apparent in the title. Although the title ‘2 Vexed 2 Tired’ is based on *2 Fast 2 Furious*, the reference is intentionally altered so as to better reflect the emotion conveyed by the song. It is funny at first sight, but the more you listen, the more the title begins to sound like an accurate account of the exhaustion experienced in modern times; being ‘too vexed’ and ‘too tired’ ceases to be a joke and instead becomes a real condition. The background to the song includes yet another odd element. According to Michael Bissett, the idea struck him in a dream in which an elderly Rastafarian was working in a launderette and the man was overwhelmed by the troubles of life, describing himself as “too vexed and too tired”. Bissett awoke, recorded the melody on his phone and then went back to sleep. This dreamlike starting point is exactly suited to the song since “2 Vexed 2 Tired” has a slightly surreal quality of its own and transforms a common feeling of being exhausted into something impressive and almost absurd.
Yet beneath the humour there lies a very genuine feeling of frustration. Composed in a particularly gloomy January, the song expresses Bissett’s own experience of being drained by his work, by routine, and by the lack of certainty regarding what the coming year might hold. It is this personal starting point that gives the song its emotional depth. The song is not merely a clever commentary on boredom; it arises from a much darker situation in which exhaustion begins to impair a person’s ability to imagine a better future. Here, the influence of cultural critic Mark Fisher is especially significant since his concept of the “slow cancellation of the future” provides a framework for the song’s main anxiety. The lyrics paint a picture of a world in which things start to seem repetitive and possibilities vanish bit by bit. The chorus expresses this quite effectively: “Everything’s boring, nothing is new, What can you do when the future is cancelled? The lines are direct and nearly conversational, and it is exactly for that reason that they are effective; there is no complicated metaphor acting as an obstacle between the listener and the emotion. The song conveys the frustration experienced when looking ahead and being unable to see any difference awaiting one there. Lines such as “The life you were promised slides out of view / and there’s no dreams just sleep”* reinforce that sense. The song goes beyond mere boredom and becomes a commentary on disappointment, highlighting the difference between the life people are told they are entitled to and the reality they end up with. The phrase *“no dreams just sleep”* is especially powerful since it treats ambition itself as nothing more than exhaustion; rather than dreaming about the future, the narrator is just trying to get through the present. Although musically the Uncanny Valley Girls are determined not to let the song entirely sink into despair, the bouncing synths add a touch of colour and energy while the drums, influenced by dancehall, give the song a physical rhythm. This choice is significant since even though the song is about burnout it still manages to make you want to move. There is almost a form of resistance here: the music continues to dance even though the lyrics are questioning if there is anything left to dance towards.
This combination is typical of the overall style of the Uncanny Valley Girls, a style which involves noisy indie-rock energy combined with shimmering synth textures inspired by the 1980s. The influences are packed into an extremely brief length on “2 Vexed 2 Tired”, so that the song comes across as a sudden outburst of anxiety rather than as a lengthy meditation. It comes in, makes its case, and vanishes before the emotion has a chance to become comfortable. The fact that the song is short is in fact one of its strengths; “2 Vexed 2 Tired” has no need to go into excessive detail. The main point is immediately apparent and the concise length reflects the impatience and exhaustion expressed in the lyrics. It contains no unnecessary extra material and has the feel of someone at last managing to say what has been bothering them and then moving on. The reason the song has such an impact is that the feeling at its core is becoming all too familiar—people experience it when they’re working, carrying out the same routines, seeing the possibilities shrink, and wondering when their lives are meant to start feeling different. Nevertheless, Uncanny Valley Girls deal with that feeling with a sufficient amount of humour and musical energy to prevent it from becoming entirely depressing. Although “2 Vexed 2 Tired” starts off as a whimsical title and as a bizarre image of a man in a launderette, it eventually turns out to be something far more familiar—it is a song expressing how weary one feels about the present yet still having difficulty believing in the future. And the most interesting aspect of the song is that, even though it contains so much frustration, the song itself doesn’t stop moving. It turns “2 Vexed 2 Tired” into more than just a burnout song; it comes across as a minor act of defiance—a reminder that even if the future seems to have been wiped out, making noise, making music, and discovering something to dance to can still count as a form of resistance.
English