This post originally appeared in the June 9, 2024 installment of Eater Today, a newsletter bringing you the freshest news from the food world every day. Subscribe now.
Like literally everyone else, I have had Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” stuck in my head for about three weeks straight. I have woken up nearly every morning with some bit of it already rolling. There’s a radio station in my brain playing it nonstop, and I keep tuning in. I don’t even know if I like the song. That’s not the point. Catchiness in a pop song is something that exists outside of enjoyment. I’m not blasting the Cellino & Barnes jingle all the time either, and yet, that shows up all the time, too.
But when I started seeing multiple people, including Carpenter herself, posing for photos with espresso martinis captioned with the lyric, “That’s that me espresso,” I was like Finally, a blog for my food site, because it’s a song about food! Kind of! Then, Carpenter announced an espresso-centric collaboration with ice cream company Van Leeuwen. And then it turns out that a lot of hits coming out recently are about food — kind of! Is this the summer of food bops? Let’s try to make it happen.
“Espresso” is obvious. But then, we have Chappell Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova.” Red wine isn’t exactly the ideal summer drink, but you can definitely hum this to yourself while drinking Lambrusco on a patio, perhaps while eating Papa John’s pizza, which Roan also name drops in “Femininominon.” There’s also an extended metaphor of Roan being hot takeout in “HOT TO GO;” perhaps she is single-handedly responsible for all this. But there’s also Billie Eilish’s “Lunch,” which is a meal you eat in the middle of the day. Hozier released “Too Sweet,” famously a flavor. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”? “Candy Paint” by Normani? Food bop summer!
Okay, so most of these songs aren’t about food at all. The titular espresso is Sabrina Carpenter’s ability to keep her lover’s attention, “red wine supernova” is a perfect pop gibberish phrase riffing on Oasis, and Billie Eilish’s “Lunch” is just a euphemism for oral sex. Hozier does directly reference drinking whiskey and coffee in “Too Sweet,” but the song is basically about how he’s too depressed to be with an optimist. And “candy paint” is something about cars.
Food is obviously a great metaphor for all the big emotions you sing about in pop songs. It lends itself well to the craving for love, the hunger of want, and in general, mouth stuff. It really is the perfect canvas for a song of the summer, when our shared desire to find a two-minute-and-thirty-second-long reprieve we can relish with others feels particularly necessary. We can make this about finding joy in the horrors, the need to celebrate small, fun things to shore us up against the burnout that would be so easy to fall into if we only ever acknowledged the bad. These bops, and the foods they draw from, can remind us all that there’s space for a full range of emotions in our lives. But it also doesn’t need to go that deep. Roan is singing about Papa John’s! That’s objectively funny!
Of course, the hottest songs of the summer, the most pop-friendly season, are going to reference the agony and ecstasy of consumption. There’s a reason the lyric isn’t “That’s that me caffeine pill.” Espresso is just sexier. Probably because it’s Italian. Anyway, it’s food bop summer, as we’ve clearly proven. Go forth and enjoy. Just don’t overthink it.
