Reetoxa – “You Deserve Better Than Me” Explores Love and Letting Go
There’s something about relationships that sometimes you wish were different. Like you meet someone, everything is good and just like that you just think they deserve better. If you look at it, I think we’ve all been on that one dating app date. Y’all arrange to meet, and it’s at a nice local spot, then you smash some tacos, talk about your favorite bands, and you look at it, then it looks like everything on paper seems absolutely perfect. The text chemistry was great, they are nice, and they look exactly like their profile photos. But then, the bill comes, and you realize something brutal. The spark is completely missing, there is no magic chemistry.
You are left with the awkward task of letting a perfectly lovely person down without sounding like a total jerk and all seems like a fumble and you’ve gotta be honest with them. If that feeling is familiar to you, trust that you’re going to deeply relate to this brand-new single from Melbourne alternative rock project Reetoxa. They called this one “You Deserve Better Than Me“, and I can say it’s the ultimate sing-along anthem for anyone who has ever had to choose emotional honesty over a casual fling.
If you’ve been with us for long, I’m sure you know Reetoxa by now. But there are always new peeps in town, so this is the musical project of singer and songwriter Jason McKee, and let us be completely honest, his backstory is one wild journey. Just before the pandemic, Jason spent six months in prison. While he was locked away, his mother tragically passed away. To honor her memory, he decided to rename himself using her maiden name.
But then disaster struck. When he changed his name, his Apple account completely glitched out. In an instant, decades of his creative life vanished. All of his old photos, his voice memos, his lyric notes, and his guitar riff ideas were permanently wiped clean. But that didn’t break him, yes he was devastated but also determined. So Jason hopped on a cruise to New Zealand and desperately tried to remember every single song hook from absolute scratch. The intense mental pressure actually drove him so mad that he ended up spending six weeks in a hospital bed. Talk about suffering for your art!
Out of that creative chaos came a massive double album titled Soliloquy which has been covered already here. Now to record it, Jason pulled together an absolute dream team of legendary Australian musicians at The Avenue studio in Cheltenham. We are talking about Peter Marin from Jet on the drums, James Ryan from Men at Work on guitar, and Kit Riley, who played bass for Robbie Williams. While much of the album is intense and heavy, “You Deserve Better Than Me” arrives as a beautiful, soothing ballad that gives the listener a welcome breather. The recording process had a great twist, too. At the absolute last minute, the bass player, Kit, changed the entire chord progression. Luckily, these guys are such seasoned pros that they adapted instantly and nailed the entire track in just four takes.
Hope that wasn’t too much of your time eh? Well the song has this incredibly warm, easygoing acoustic feel with an unforgettable melody that invites you to sing along right away. It actually comes in two versions on the release, the main track and a karaoke version, just in case you want to belt it out in your car.
To every great music, there’s a story behind the lyrics is and this one is an actual true story. So Jason went on a Tinder date with a lovely girl at a Mexican restaurant and the Arcadia Bar on Toorak Road in South Yarra. They had a fantastic evening, and she was clearly eager to keep seeing him. But Jason knew deep down that he didn’t feel that vital romantic chemistry. Instead of leading her on or using her for a quick night of fun, he chose to be vulnerable and honest. He told her she deserved better, said a polite goodnight, and walked away into the evening.
What the song is trying to tell us is that, sometimes it’s better to let go than lead people on, especially in this modern dating, you’ve gotta have some personal integrity. You don’t have to keep a convo going if you know deep down from the onset that, this ain’t going nowhere. It’s better to be truthful to them, than go ahead and make them trust you, then leave them in the middle of the sea. The thing is, it started out as a dream Jason had about meeting a special person at the absolute wrong time in life, but the real-life Tinder date helped him finally finish the lyrics.
And this happens a lot, sometimes you meet that person you actually want and need, but also at the wrong time, and maybe they may not understand, but you’ve gotta let go and move on. The song forces us to think about the ones who got away, or maybe the times someone else let us down. It highlights how rare it is to find true emotional honesty in the modern world. Its beautiful how it tells the listener that it’s always better to be lonely and truthful than to stay in a relationship that is built on a lie. But people just don’t care these days and they go ahead anyway. The song makes you feel a wave of sympathy for both the girl and for Jason, but you respect him for doing the right thing.
Well this is actually a perfect track to put on your playlist when you are winding down, reflecting on your own past relationships, or just craving a beautifully written piece of independent Australian rock. “You Deserve Better Than Me” is up on steaming platforms, go give it a listen, share it with your friends, and make sure to add it to your favorite acoustic playlists!
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