Dating normally is stressful, so during the pandemic it can be painful. It’s been a year of more relationships going online, and for some this has been a challenge. Luckily,  Fickle Friends’ new song “IRL” is the perfect tune for couples ready to take their relationship offline. 

Off their latest experimental EP, The Weird Years (Season 1), “IRL” is about both the desire and fear of moving a relationship offline and into the real world. 

The lyrics show the balance of wanting more but being afraid that the relationship can’t survive offline, with the worry that the online version of the person you’re dating is not going to be the same in person:

“And I wanna know/

If anybody could be holding you back/

Is there somebody else that ya think about/

( I’m in the dark and I don’t like that )/

Or how you cannot handle being face to face/

Or keep communicating, butya like the space/

(I’m in the dark and I don’t like that)”

Yet, they still want more than sending messages online or texts everyday: 

“Can we just speak in real life/

Conversations I can follow/

Conversations I can swallow/

When I know/

That we could speak in real time/

Conversations in the same room/

Cos I don’t wanna lose you/

When I know/

That we could speak in real life”

The song is incredibly relatable for many couples who are now continuing their relationship solely online, because of the pandemic. For many, video-chatting and messaging back and forth is not enough for them, and they crave face-to-face interaction. 

In their artist guide of the EP, lead singer, Natti, stated: 

“Despite having written it a while back, the concept coincidently fitted so well into the narrative of this year and with some lyrical edits and some structural re-writes we had a song that basically told the story of trying to build a relationship online. I’ve sort of loved hearing people’s dating stories from this year, and we just pooled them all together.”

The song is exactly what to expect from Fickle Friends, an indie-pop band from England. Upbeat and fun, it’s a song that’s easy to dance and sing along with.