By Katie Halper • @kthalps • 10 years ago

“Girls Chase Boys” updates iconic sexist ’80s music video

Does this video look familiar? If it does, you’re either 100 years old, like me, and remember seeing Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” on the TV, or it’s become a kitsch throwback. This video, however, by Ingrid Michaelson, for her catchy  new “Girls Chase Boys” song makes some major improvements; is a lot less white and a lot less gender-binaried, lucky for us. But you don’t need to have lived through the 1980s to enjoy the video and all its hotness.

Lyrics after the jump.

New York-born and raised and based indie-pop singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson explains that her song started out about a break but became something more:

Girls Chase Boys started out as a break up song but took on a deeper meaning as I continued writing. More than just being about my experience, its focus shifted to include the idea that, no matter who or how we love, we are all the same. The video takes that idea one step further, and attempts to turn stereotypical gender roles on their head. Girls don’t exclusively chase boys. We all know this! We all chase each other and in the end we are all chasing after the same thing: love. I hope you enjoy it! AHHH!

It’s a heartwarming statement about how regardless of gender or sexuality, we’re all miserable.

Lyrics

All the broken hearts in the world still beat
Lets not make it harder than it has to be
Ooooooh it’s all the same thing
Girls chase boys chase girls

All the broken hearts in the world still beat
Lets not make it harder than it has to be
Ooooooh it’s all the same thing
Girls chase boys chase girls

I’m a little let down, but I’m not dead
There’s a little bit more that has to be said
oh oooh
you play me, now I play you, too
Lets just call it over

All the broken hearts in the world still beat
Lets not make it harder than it has to be
Oooooh its all the same thing
Girls chase boys chase girls (x2)
Chase girls chase boys chase boys chase girls

Im a little bit home, but I’m not there yet
Its one to forgive but its hard to forget
Don’t call me, I won’t call you, too
Lets just call it over

All the broken hearts in the world still beat
Lets not make it harder than it has to be
Oooooh it’s all the same thing
Girls chase boys chase girls (x2)
chase girls chase boys chase boys chase girls

I got two hands one beating heart
And I’ll be alright I’m gonna be alright

Yeah I got two hands one beating heart
And I’ll be alright, I’m gonna be alright
Gonna be alright

All the broken hearts in the world still beat
Lets not make it harder than it has to be
Oooooh it’s all the same thing
Girls chase boys chase girls (x4)

Screen Shot 2013-10-28 at 11.13.50 PM Katie Halper can’t get this song out of her head. 

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Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and filmmaker based in New York. Katie graduated from The Dalton School (where she teaches history) and Wesleyan University (where she learned that labels are for jars.) A director of Living Liberally and co-founder/performer in Laughing Liberally, Katie has performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, D.C. Comedy Festival, all five Netroots Nations, and The Nation Magazine Cruise, where she made Howard Dean laugh! and has appeared with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon and Jim Hightower. Her writing and videos have appeared in The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation Magazine, Gawker, Nerve, Jezebel, the Huffington Post, Alternet and Katie has been featured in/on NY Magazine, LA Times, In These Times, Gawker,Jezebel, MSNBC, Air America, GritTV, the Alan Colmes Show, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once) and the National Review, which called Katie “cute and some what brainy.” Katie co-produced Tim Robbins’s film Embedded, (Venice Film Festival, Sundance Channel); Estela Bravo’s Free to Fly (Havana Film Festival, LA Latino Film Festival); was outreach director for The Take, Naomi Klein/Avi Lewis documentary about Argentine workers (Toronto & Venice Film Festivals, Film Forum); co-directed New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for Museum of the City of NY exhibit, and wrote/directed viral satiric videos including Jews/ Women/ Gays for McCain.

Katie is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, and New Yorker.

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