‘Melon Dating Simulator!’, bet you’ve never heard song called that before, is the new single from Glaswegian sophisti-pop songmonger Peter Cat, and the first from upcoming EP The Magus (due Mar 18).
The track is as oddball as the title suggests, inspired by a Steam game which the player romances a melonhuman hybrid in a dystopian future, the song takes through a journey of crackly analogue synthesisers and silky jazzy chords with a buoyant swagger, as the surface level melon romancing gives way to what ultimately is a love song about finding someone you share a bond with, your melon if you will.
Delving away from the guitar-pop of debut album The Saccharine Underground, ‘Melon Dating Simulator!’ is a first taste of a more experimental electronic sound from Peter Cat. While singer and songwriter Graham Gillespie’s sonorous baritone is an ever present recalling the likes of John Grant and Neil Hannon, while his lyrics are as literate, sharp, brittle and candid as ever.
‘Melon Dating Simulator!’ is a positive, confidence and fun track, that you can bop along elegantly and gracefully to, while blissfully singing about being in love with a melon.
“It was inspired by a game called Superstorm Melon Date, where in a post apocalyptic future, you take a human-melon hybrid out on a date. They are half melon and half human. They are called Mel. They are actually very nice and of all of the virtual characters I’ve attempted to romance and there have been many, Mel is right up there. I had a successful date with Mel, we went back to their shipping container or something similar. And the game ended with the lights going out suggestively.
“The song’s not so much about that game, as it is about a finding someone who has the same kind of damage in their past as you do, the same kind of shame and issues and actually bonding with that person over it and finding out that having that in common gives you a bond, a mutual connection that’s incredibly strong. It’s a positive song. It’s a love song. And it’s about a lot more than a melon. Although it is also about a melon.”
