P!nk loves a challenge and on her strident new protest single, “Irrelevant,” she takes on any and everyone who would dare to make her feel invisible or powerless. “You can call me irrelevant, insignificant/ You can try to make me small/ I’ll be your heretic, you f–kin’ hypocrite/ I won’t think of you at all/ Sticks and stones and all that s–t/ Does Jesus love the ignorant?/ I like to think he’d gladly take us all,” she sings on the song’s pugnacious pre-chorus.
Proceeds from the track, which surprise dropped on Thursday (July 14), will be donated to former First Lady Michelle Obama’s nonpartisan voting initiative When We All Vote. The defiant chorus features a play on The Who’s iconic 1965 debut album track “The Kids Are Alright,” with P!nk warning, “The kids are not alright/ None of us are right/ I’m tired but I won’t sleep tonight/ ‘Cause I still feel alive/ The kids are not alright (not alright).”
It also nods to another iconic song on the final bridge, Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 feminist anthem “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” when P!nk sings “Girls just wanna have rights/ So, why do we have to fight?”
As if the message was not already clear enough, the single art is a blurry snap of the singer throwing up the middle finger with glee. It marks the first time P!nk has collaborated on a song with Grammy-winning producer/songwriter Ian Fitchuk (Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris).
In a statement about the track, P!nk explained, “As a woman with an opinion and the fearlessness to voice that opinion, it gets very tiring when the only retort is to tell me how irrelevant I am. I am relevant because I exist, and because I am a human being. No one is irrelevant. And no one can take away my voice.” When We All Vote’s mission is to increase participation in each election cycle and change the culture around voting.
Earlier this week, P!nk teased the song in a 16-second video post that read “irrelevant #shutupandsing #challengeaccepted,” in which she stared directly into the camera from close range and crooned what we now know is part of the chorus. On Tuesday, she revealed, “Woke up. Got heated. Wrote song. Coming soon,” alongside what appeared to be the handwritten lyrics to the new track
Listen to “Irrelevant” below.
