Bleached impressed us with last year’s newly sober Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough?, closing track “Shitty Ballet” in particular. Today they’re back with their first new song since then. “Stupid Boys” is built around an upbeat chorus — “Stupid boys with broken hearts/ Love to watch you fall apart” — but as Jennifer Clavin explains in a statement, what she thought was a fun song turned out to be quite dark when she reexamined it in the wake of the Burger Records sexual misconduct scandal.

Here’s Clavin’s statement on the new song:

Making light of a dark situation has been a tool I’ve used to get through challenging times. Specifically, a way I’ve often honored my recovery is to tell my story through my lyrics — this time the subject is crazy ex-boyfriends. This started out as a jokey song, something light-hearted, meant to be danced to…or so I thought. After the most recent flood of “me too” call outs around men in the music scene, I returned to this song and felt somewhat surprised, because the lyrics actually aren’t so light-hearted, and they directly refer back to experiences related to the reckoning we just saw go down. I don’t wanna keep dwelling on the past and all its fucked up-ness, but I also don’t wanna ignore it and brush it under the rug like it never happened. What I do believe is that life is about finding a balance between the dark and light, and if I want inner peace I have to allow the light in to absorb the dark. So maybe this song has changed shape, just like our understanding of things change over time, with perspective, and now it is both a vessel for some painful memories and a testament to growth and healing, and to me, that’s what music is for. I’m proud of this song for so many reasons, but most especially because it strikes that balance for me, and I hope for you too.

Hear “Stupid Boys” below.

Bleached will play a livestreamed set tonight at 7PM PT to benefit General Election Live. Tickets are available here.