In September 2003, alternative rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs released the single, “Maps”. Two decades later, this song is as timeless as ever. It’s a song you reach for when love is easy and difficult all at once. For all the ruminations you’ve had on loving someone, giving and receiving it, or if it’s even out there at all, “Maps” is there for you. Its bittersweetness, angst, and yearning resonate with the hopeless romantics of then and now. This is a song that you don’t really forget; it sits in the back of your mind and waits for you to remember it. From Karen’s soft, almost subdued vocals to the loud, brash sound of the band, “Maps” sees and hears your heavy heart.
Personally, I could loop this song for hours. What once was an earworm now appears quintessential to my twenties. Someone out there is waiting to love me, I hope to myself. Someone out there will love me as much as I will love them. From the beginning to the end, this song is an experience. It lets you fixate on a love so personal and singular. More than puppy love, stronger than like-like, Yeah Yeah Yeahs allow you to feel selfish about whoever is on your mind.
Guitarist Nick Zinner opens up this track with an iconic tremolo. The loop on this trembling electric guitar sets a tone for the listener; the speaker is restless, there is an anxiety that can no longer be ignored. When the guitar plays a tune with a more staccato effect, sharp and crisp, the anxiety becomes clearer. This anxiety sits underneath the speaker’s skin, more apparent than they believe, and it can be heard in the first verse as well.
This first verse is short as Karen sings, “Pack up. I’m straight. Enough.” She hides behind the simplicity of such lyrics, putting on a tough act to come to terms about her former relationship going long-distance. By the time the song gets to the chorus, we realize the song overall has so few lyrics. What more needs to be said?
“Wait.” In just one word, Karen expresses a longing. A gentle plea to hear her out. Is it so much to ask someone to stay a while? It shouldn’t be, yet it is. Maybe it’s difficult to ask someone to stick around a little longer or saying this out loud speaks to a loneliness that we try not to think about so often, and Karen does it anyway. Perhaps that’s the truth we shouldn’t deny ourselves: that we love who we love and want to be around them as much as possible. That there is a comfort and warmth in knowing that you can look over your shoulder and someone will be there.
“They don’t love you like I love you.” In an email Karen wrote to her former partner, it goes, “Why do they get to be with you? They don’t love you like I love you.” We often tell ourselves that we can love a person better than anybody else could and we often make this argument because we can and know that we will.
Who else knows the richness of your inner life? Who else lets you laugh with reckless abandon? Who else has held your hand just because? The fact that we have these rhetorical questions, ones that never need an answer yet strike something in the more tender part of ourselves reveal how love, at the end of the day, is something we all want and ask for and there is nothing selfish about it. Hearing this lyric over and over again, it tells us that love is a reminder, to never forget all that comes with it.
Regardless, all throughout the song, what remains consistent is Brian Chase’ drumming. Steady, reliable, like bedrock. There is something so affirmative about it, perhaps the fact that it is in 4/4 time signature, how you can feel and hear every beat of it. Because of how little variation there is in the song’s drumline, maybe Yeah Yeah Yeahs encourages us to see how urgent and intentional it is to love someone. In loving someone, it comes so naturally that we never miss a beat.
Near the end of the song, Karen stops her singing and lets the instrumentation speak for itself. The electric guitar unleashes this messy, distorted solo while the drums beat and crash louder than before. This is it, the song tells us. Karen’s bared herself for her former lover, can you? Can you bare yourself to someone you feel deeply for? You can, you should. In truth, there is something brave about being cheesy, about cheesy love songs such as this one. No longer should you refrain yourself from loving with all your heart, go ahead and love anyway.
There is no reason to shy away from love. The love and care you feel for the person opposite of you speaks to your capacity of softness and tenderness. In letting yourself love a little freer, the tears come easier (like they did for Karen in the band’s music video). There is never any shame in loving so hard. You care so much and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs know this to be true.
The way this song ends, while the drums come to a close, there doesn’t appear to be a sense of resolution. Instead, the tremolo returns and lingers for a little more than ten seconds when a siren-like sound reverbs into the air. While the album has been mixed so that it transitions smoothly into the next track, by itself, the abrupt ending of “Maps” potentially raises that love is a risk with no guarantee. Yes, we’ve reassured ourselves and each other that there is love and we will experience it. However, how long it will last… we don’t know, but the Yeah Yeah Yeahs believe we can keep on hoping and wanting it anyway in the face of it all.
This brings my attention to the previous TikTok dance trend with the very song. The chorus was sped up and so were its movements. Yet, the movements that made up this dance, in their own way, reiterated the love behind the song itself. It was silly, fun, and simple. I say it still holds up. It’s a kinesiological translation of “Wait, they don’t love you like I love you.”
A curtsy with a raised hand. This amusing yet polite gesture pairs well with the lyric because it expresses sincerity to us. This was the first move that everybody did: it was hard to miss. What came next varied depending on the irony and niche humor of the creator. Some shook their bodies and others held the curtsy even longer.
Maybe the second half suggested our refusal to take ourselves seriously and, in doing so, we laughed at the circumstances of things instead of getting at the truth of our hearts. Maybe the pause that came with the curtsy revealed our desire for someone to wait and hear and see us, to take us as we are. (Or Fall Quarter finals were getting to me and I was grasping at straws.) Either way, I thought the dance to be an affectionate thing to participate in and reach out from one person to another, from me to you.
You can do this dance alone, or you can do it with company. You can hear it with the original vocals, in the original language, or even in attempted translations of other languages. Since the creation of the dance trend, other variations have taken place as well. Some people juxtaposed the sound with hopecore-esque quotes such as “Mama, a future ahead of you. Mama, love and light ahead of you. Mama, a tomorrow ahead of you.” Others replaced the curtsy altogether with funnier poses, meme after meme, one after another. It was all in good fun and we all got to laugh and love each other a little more.
Perhaps what allowed this trend to be so positive and delightful was the fact that the song is in a major key, which is associated with happiness and everything uplifting. Despite the pain and longing behind the lyrics, the song urges you to love, to hold onto it. Please do.
To me, what makes this song so easy to like and timeless to listen to is that it reminds me to embrace how love never ends. People come and go, people stay and leave. I loved everybody then and will continue to do so now. In truth, the beauty of “Maps” is that it doesn’t have to be about a stupid crush that won’t go away or a lover who has a place in the corner of your heart. It could be about a friend who’s left a mark on you, someone you never want to forget. Maybe a sibling who, for whatever reason, is moving away sooner than you expected. Parents who continue to follow and wave goodbye at you as you step closer and closer to security at the airport.
There is so much love to give and receive. No one loves like I do. And no one loves like you do. Someone will love us tenfold. Many already do. “Maps” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs is beautiful and real. Similarly, in the face of all things rough and hard and sad and tough, the fact that you wake up and love anyway is just as beautiful and real.
Poems, tunes, and other things in a similar vein to “Maps”
Poem Number Two on Bell’s Theorem, or The New Physicality of Long Distance Love - June Jordan
I Will Always - The Cranberries
Another Green World - Nicole Eisenman
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