Psi (Before The End)

"Psi (Before The End)"
Single by Romo from the album Psi
Released	August 13, 2021
Format	CD single Vinyl single Digital download
Recorded	2021
Genre	Electronic · Avant-pop · Experimental · Industrial
Length	3:42
Label	The Empire
Writer	Jenna Romo
Producer	Jenna Romo
Chart position	#2 (Urapopstar Top 40 Singles Chart) #2 (Urapopstar Airplay 40)
Certification	Gold
Additional artwork
Romo chronology
"No One Ever Gets What They Want" (2021) "Psi (Before The End)" (2021)

"Psi (Before The End)" (stylized as "Ψ (Before The End)") is a song by Romo, released as the lead single from her seventh studio album Psi. It was commercially released on August 13, 2021 and was the final single released in Romo's lifetime.

A press release from Romo's label, The Empire, described "Psi (Before The End)" as her most abrasive and most experimental song to be released as a single. Upon its commercial single release, "Psi (Before The End)" debuted at #2 with sales of 101,700 copies, Romo's best debut position and first week sales since "Pandora Kills" in 2011.

Composition

"Psi (Before The End)" is a break from the multi-part suites that dominated her previous two albums Romo (II) and Tambora, but despite its shorter length it is darker, heavier, more abrasive and more experimental, incorporating influences from electronic and industrial music and deeply personal songwriting borrowing inspiration from transgressive and confessional artists. It consists of an intro, two verses, a two-line hook repeated twice, and an outro. Romo has cited the electronic musician Arca and the industrial hip hop group Death Grips as influences on the song.

Lyrics

The song's lyrics discuss a setting where her personal conflicts and the coarsening of the global political landscape have accelerated the feeling that the end of the world is imminent, but feels that the days, weeks and months leading up to the moment will be worse than the actual moment. The first verse deals with Romo's internal struggles and how past and present connections with people suffered because of misunderstandings brought on by her personality. The second verse concerns controlling influences in Romo's life in both the personal and political realms.

The opening line "Autumn is coming" is a reference to the saying "autumn of my life," referring to the years a person experiences before old age and death, and holds a triple meaning as Romo uses it to describe her anticipation of the end of the world, the end of Western democracy, and the end of her young years as she nears 40. It also is a reference to the phrase "Winter is coming" from George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire book series, adapted into the television series Game Of Thrones; Romo previously referenced the series on "Feminis†".

The penultimate line in the first verse, "I've been mad since I was 2, stop me from cutting my throat," is a reference to Sylvia Plath's poem "Lesbos," which includes the line, "She’ll cut her throat at ten if she’s mad at two." The song's outro also was an attempt to emulate Plath's writing style. The line in the second verse, "The ones who can't tell a toilet from a Duchamp," is a reference to the Marcel Duchamp sculpture "Fountain," which depicts a urinal.

Track listings

CD single

1. Psi (Before The End)
2. Psi (Before The End) (DJ Double Garage's Far From Alpha Remix)
3. Stonefist

Vinyl single

1. Psi (Before The End)
2. Psi (Before The End) (DJ Double Garage's Far From Alpha Remix)
3. Stonefist
4. Screams From The Light Years (Travis Barker Remix)

Promotion

Full time promotion commenced immediately after the single's surprise release. The first interview supporting the single led to the reveal that Romo had sex with songwriting partner Luke Ramada after the Song of No Summer livestream supporting her previous single "No One Ever Gets What They Want". Promotion also included several chat show interviews and the announcement of a Reddit AMA hosted by r/GoneWild.

Romo refused to do a single cover shoot for "Psi" because she wanted the song and not herself to take front and center. Her management worked around her refusal by recycling the originally intended promotional artwork for the canceled Romo (II) single "Turned Ugly".

Music video

The video opens with the following text: "Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society." - U.S. Rep. John Lewis, 1940-2020

The video starts with a grainy found footage-type (Cloverfield-ish) visual depicting a party. In the party, Easter eggs tied to Romo's career can be seen - one of the partygoers is dressed cosplaying one of the David LaChapelle photographs staged in "Nocturnal Emission" (2009), one of the guests is serving two cupcakes with prominent cherry placement like the "TITS-FM!" video (2009) and one of the women is wearing the "Madame Bullshit" dress (2020). The footage runs for about 10 seconds before someone runs across the camera, it shakes, and the picture goes black. The Greek letter for "Psi", Ψ, appears on the screen.

It is dark outside on an empty city street, until a large angry mob - some carrying torches - descend on the street, preparing to loot the downtown stores in preparation for the apocalypse. One of the buildings they pass by is a musical instruments store called Mars with a destroyed guitar with fake blood spurting from it on display in the storefront, a hidden reference to Romo's 2011 single "Music From Mars" and its lyric "the sounds of Garageband have murdered guitars". Another is a jewelry store with a set of earrings shaped like the "Venus cross" iconography of the "Feminist Christ" era in the storefront.

A group from the mob breaks into a tea shop. Dressed as Paulo Araujo, they take all the tea in the shop and dump it into a lake. The scene references both the Boston Tea Party, where colonists disguised as Native Americans dumped tea into the Boston Harbor to protest taxes, and the tea boycott Romo threatened that sparked an intense feud with Paulo.

As the mob continues to march along the street, another group enters a gallery. Someone in the group looks around as mob members start hoarding artwork. There is a framed Last Supper painting, but featuring Satan and 12 notorious murderers, most prominently featuring O.J. Simpson, a reference to the controversial "Hell Is A Discotheque" video (2010). Another photo in the gallery depicts a ball gag in the center of the Andromeda galaxy, a reference to the line "light pollution that gags the galaxies" in the Tambora track "Screams From The Light Years". There's also a sculpture depicting a Greek cyclops with tears in his eyes, referencing the "crying cyclops" double entendre in the lyrics of "Piccadilly Circus", which a member of the mob carries out of the gallery.

The angry mob continues to march. At the end of the street, they're met by a large group of counterprotesters who are there to fight for a more peaceful and just society. One of the counterprotesters can be seen wearing a T-shirt with the image of retired URAPS legend China in the style of the Barack Obama "Hope" poster by Shepard Fairey, a reference to the artwork campaign for "Belle Ball/Covergirl" (2009). The leader of the group, dressed in a skimpy club outfit, resembles Romo's visual depictions of Belle Ball in the POPSTAR-era videos. She reaches for her phone and silences an alert from her calendar that says "Fight off Xenomanian State", referencing the totalitarian government depicted in the "Schizo Pop" video (2008). The leader of the angry mob stares down the leader of the counterprotesters while reaching for a shade of lipstick marked "ROUGE". As one of the members of the mob holds up a sign reading "HONEYBUNCH", one of the counterprotesters clenches her fists in a strangling motion, referencing the Eve (2008) lyric "When you call me your honeybunch I feel like strangling you."

As this face-off occurs, there is a cut-away to the inside of a ballet studio, where a few counterprotesters are practicing confrontation poses. One of the counterprotester's motions mirror the artwork of Romo's 2008 single "Fleeing The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony".

The face off between the two opposing protest sides continue, with each side shown shouting loudly at each other. Suddenly, an intermediary comes out - a militia wielding guns at both sides, claiming the protesters are on their private property and wants them out now. The groups stampede through the intermediary and then into each other. A woman among the counterprotesters wearing only a black bra uses the strap as a makeshift slingshot, mirroring the pose made on the cover art for Romo's "Schizo Pop". She fires 10 shots at the mob, referencing the song's "10 copies" hook.

The chaotic fights between the two sides commence for several seconds, until suddenly, the leaders of the groups close their mouths. Just moments after, the picture suddenly starts shaking and several loud booms are heard, symbolizing the occurrence of a world-ending disaster. The Greek letter for "Omega", Ω, appears on the screen, and the video ends.

Reception

Critical

"Psi (Before The End)" received critical acclaim. Reviewers praised the track for its experimental and aggressive instrumentals and the poetic tone and storytelling in the lyrics. Stereogum favorably compared the song to the 2021 album Ultrapop by hardcore collective The Armed in its blend of pop melodies and chords with instrumentals it described as "all out ear canal assaults." Critics also gave highly positive reviews of the song's music video, with one reviewer describing it as "blending political imagery, disaster film conventions and an abundance of hidden references to Romo's career and somehow making it work."

The B-side, a cover of "Stonefist" by Health, also received widespread critical acclaim upon its release. The general consensus was its blend of noisy and heavy sounds with pop melodies was a progression from "Psi".

Commercial

On August 19, 2021, "Psi (Before The End)" debuted at #2 on the Urapopstar Top 40 Singles Chart with sales of 101,700 copies, with Alesha's comeback single "Mortal" outselling it by about 18,000 copies in its second week of release. Despite missing #1, "Psi" earned Romo's best debut position and first week sales in just over 10 years, when "Pandora Kills" entered at #3 with sales of 103,298 copies in August 2011. It is also her third single to earn a sales week of more than 100,000 copies, following "Pandora Kills" and "Feminis†".

It also reached #2 on the Urapopstar Airplay 40 following its commercial single release.

As of November 4, 2021, "Psi (Before The End)" has sold 451,528 copies, enough to be certified gold. It currently stands as Romo's third best selling single, followed by "Feminis†" and "Schizo Pop".