Morning Sex

Joey Purp

By Natalie Silver

I do not play FIFA. I do not listen to Post Malone. I do not order animal style 4x4s at In-N-Out. 

I am not a 23-year-old guy...but I do spend a lot of time with them. 

And if you were to ask me to ask one of my beloved male friends how they would describe the idea of “morning sex,” and perhaps articulate it in, I don’t know, one sound, I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that it would uncannily mimic the first 20 seconds of Joey Purp’s aptly named song off his 2017 album, iiiDrops—but only a hell of a lot more pitchy and a hell of a lot more desperate. Purp did a damn good job of marrying sound with emotion in this riotous number—and right off the bat, too. 

The opening primal howl of Purp’s “Morning Sex” establishes an exultant and lustful tone for the song, but if you know Purp at all, it’s also a flashy preamble to the tale of something much more complicated and far less universal than the roar of orgasmic glee. 

 Purp employs a musical technique that is often attempted but rarely successful in its impact: lyrical dissonance, which basically means to lace jubilant and upbeat melodies with a much more morbid subscript. 

Yet this shouldn’t come as a surprise to Purp fans, for he is never one to deliver something one dimensional. Every verse is impactful, every line is intentional. In the case of “Morning Sex,” the story behind the lyrics is much less playful than its title, yet perhaps still quietly communicates a parallel, only more sinister, hedonism. 

But then again, how bad can it be? It’s morning sex. 

September 11, 2019