Sometimes a song keeps drawing you back long after you’re tired of hearing it. Something about it is cryptic and esoteric and no matter how much you listen to it, it defies comprehension while simultaneously ringing true.
I had this experience recently with Jessica Pratt’s “Better Hate.” I kept going back to it until it topped my Spotify repeat list. Consciously, I didn’t know what she was saying but the music, the title, and Pratt’s lyrical fragments captured me.
This is the definition good art—art that draws in the mind/spirit/heart and that opens it up.
I wanted to go deeper.
I wrote down all the lyrics of “Better Hate” on paper then got to work.
The first thing that was bewildering me was the title. Was she saying: “better hate” as in “better to hate than to like,” or “you’d better hate, or else love will hurt you,” something like that? Or was it more like: “a way to hate that is better than division, distance, cynicism, and hurt,” or “this hate is better than my previous way of hating,” something like that? I thought about this before I started writing and decided on the more optimistic interpretation, about improving on the negative feelings one has.
I think the title is more about embracing conflict and disagreement, which can seem like hate. Something like “agree to disagree” but more emotional, like: “agree that we’re both—all—more sad and struggling than we previously accepted, and rather than hide from this struggle let’s sit with it, tied to our ‘infamy’ which we otherwise try to ‘triumph’ over.
Here’s my line by line interpretation, or in literary terms, explication. I recommend listening to the song first. It’s an amazing song.
“Better Hate,” Jessica Pratt, Here in the Pitch (2024). Mexican Summer, LLC.
Listen on Spotify, YouTube, Bandcamp, and read on Wikipedia
I’ve been clear before, what’s the longing there? /she’s asking why the man (ex-lover) still longs for her even after she’s made it clear she has nothing to offer him (what more do you want?)
What a sad case, I’m nobody’s fool /she calls the man pitiable, pathetic, deserving pathos (sad) and she declares that neither he nor anybody can disingenuously persuade (fool) her that she’s anything other than herself
And you’ve won it all, but your smile’ll be gone /she tells him he’s already inherited/received (won) everything he can inherit/receive (win) (from her, from society) and, noticing his smile now . . .
In the end when you’re yesterday’s news /. . . tells him she’ll only wipe that smile away when she leaves and disappoints him
I’ve been here before and it’s anyone’s guess /I’ve known men and they’ve idealized and expected a lot from me and I’ve grown cynical
As who’s in line /who’s normal or are all men selfish boundary-crossers?
And it’s anyone’s triumph over me /they always take advantage of what I can give
I’m no longer trying to see /I’m walking away from trying to understand them
I’m no longer friends with the enemies /men who take advantage of me are no longer my friends
I’m so tenderly waiting for you to come along /I want you, the right man, to come along
And I know you tried to get through to me /I see you and that you tried to love me, to change, to see and understand me
And while I’ve been tied to an infamy that I’ve tried to hide /but I can’t show you the true me because I’m struggling with my own past and to be honest with you, I need you to understand so I don’t have to feel cynical and pretend to be someone else (hide)
After translating, or interpreting or explicating, this song, I tried to recapitulate it into a prompt that I could feed into an AI-image generator. To do this I underlined a few key lines from the song:
“smile’ll be gone”
“it’s anyone’s triumph over me”
“no longer friends with the enemies”
“tenderly waiting”
“tied to an infamy that I’ve tried to hide”
Then I scribbled some more notes, rendering the lyrics into my guess of what might be good AI prompt text. I condensed my notes to this: [a sad (blonde) woman walking away from (adjective variable) men, returning to her (vulnerable/comfortable) place].
I also added some options for style suggestions: [(in the style of) John William Waterhouse, Edvard Munch, Franz von Stuck, &c]. Sometimes this works, sometimes not. Those are a few painters that popped to mind who, from my perspective, fit the aesthetic.1
I input this text more or less, changing and tweaking it in between each variation for fourteen images, into Google’s Gemini AI “RoboArt.” Here’s my two favorites, the first and the last image it generated:
After that, I took a break, had some lunch and thought, “why don’t I just copy and paste the whole song into the image generator and see what happens?” I tried it three times in the same app. This one fit the song best:
Finally, I thought, why don’t I see what ChatGPT has to say? So I pasted the copied text of the whole song into OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It titled its response, “Emotional Exhaustion and Resignation” and told me this:
These lyrics convey a sense of emotional exhaustion and resignation. The speaker has experienced a similar situation before, where they feel they've been deceived or let down, resulting in a loss of trust or connection. Despite any past victories or attempts at reconciliation, the speaker seems to have reached a point of disillusionment. They acknowledge the other person's efforts to reach out, but the weight of past experiences has left them unable or unwilling to continue trying.
The lyrics also touch on themes of impermanence and the inevitability of being forgotten or replaced, suggesting a kind of weary acceptance of how things have unfolded. The speaker is caught in a cycle of infamy, hinting at a troubled past or reputation they've tried to distance themselves from, yet cannot fully escape.
Overall, the lyrics reflect a complex mix of regret, detachment, and a lingering hope for someone to break through their defenses, even as they grapple with their own internal struggles.
I asked it a few follow up questions and it seemed to have the capacity to understand the artist’s emotional plight quite thoroughly. This was amazing. I’m glad I thought through the lyrics myself. I was grateful for the capacity of imitative, pattern-recognizing depth the AI had but the intimate experience of listening is where the real emotional bridge is made. This is the magic of music!
The song is a beautifully composed, bittersweet, melancholy melody. Mellifluous. It’s an airy end-of-summer tune with hints of tropicalia and a Beach Boysesque undertow. There’s nothing like listening to it, then listening to it twenty more times before deciphering and writing on paper and feeling through it line by line, with its emotional weight.
It was interesting to see how the AI and I each interpreting things. The AI, as a tool, took me deeper into the song. It was like reading a novel, or watching a play, then reading the SparkNotes or abridged prose. I asked the AI one more question: Why do you think the title of the song is “Better Hate”? The response I got differed than my interpretation and brought up a new point. I’ll post it in the footnotes below.2
Translation is a powerful art, never constant but always changing with context and times and translator. What do you think about my interpretation, and the AI’s? I recommend listening to the song a couple of times first (see links above).
I could be completely wrong, and so could the AI. Alas, that is the beauty of art. Recapitulation begets reinterpretation.
What do you think?
The aesthetic of my own limited interpretation, at least. . . In retrospect, there’s endless other (better) art styles to invoke for this song. Finally, I’m fairly certain Google saves previous prompts, thus the “coastal” and “water” themes emerge in my images.
The title "Better Hate" seems to encapsulate the complex emotions expressed in the lyrics. It suggests that the speaker might have reached a point where they feel it's safer or "better" to embrace hate, or at least a hardened attitude, rather than expose themselves to the vulnerability and potential pain that comes with love or trust.
The word "better" here could imply a protective mechanism—perhaps the speaker believes that it's easier or less painful to stay in a state of guardedness or bitterness rather than risk being hurt again. "Hate" might not necessarily refer to outright loathing but could represent the emotional walls they've built, a shield against further disappointment.
In essence, the title might reflect a reluctant choice the speaker feels they must make, choosing self-protection over the vulnerability that comes with love, even if deep down, they still long for connection. The contrast between "better" and "hate" highlights the internal conflict—the desire to protect oneself versus the innate human need for love and closeness.
OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT (Aug 24 version) [Large language model].
https://chat.openai.com/chat