Milk

This song is about drugs as mentioned before. I will give a line by line breakdown... I guess.

"Straight lines that unwind you" - Lines of coke, dope, whatever make her at ease

"She does a little thing with her eye that says, "We're off soon"" - She is excited to be off work or whatever so she can go use

"She says the bleeding's incidental 'cause she's so cool" - Who cares about the side effects of drug use, they aren't that bad.

"She says it's no fun if you've only a bottle of wine" - Oh, you only drink wine? Thats no fun. I wish you had coke.

"And now she's doing it all the time" - self-explanatory Yeah, she's doing it all the time

"Slow down" - This is matty speaking to her "Yeah, I want you" - this is her speaking to Matty

"She does a little bit on the sly that shows what she's up to" - She only does a little and tries to keep it a secret, but he knows and she knows he knows.

"She started talking about pretending she's listening" - If you have known any drug addict you get this line

"It won't mend your heart if it's only a couple of lines" - This is kind of confusing... Not sure if hes saying that only a little won't really solve your issues and do more (sarcastically)... or that she shouldn't do it at all..

And now she's doing it all the time Yeah, she's doing it all the time Yeah, she's doing it all the time Yeah, she's doing it all the time Yeah, she's doing it all the time

I didn't really look too much in to it at first but it just hit me one day that its about drugs and its very obvious. The title "Milk" it typical Matty ambiguity. Probably a reference to Clockwork Orange as mentioned before. This song is about early stages of drug addiction... That innocence slowly being shed.

jesus christ i have been singing the wrong lyrics to every single song of theirs and i'm just now learning what the actual words are

I think it's safe to say he's talking about a girl, who used to be straight-edged, but has now gotten hooked on alcohol, and especially on drugs. It's a hell of a fun song, kind of morbidly, but fitting nonetheless. The only real question is, why is it called milk?

I will go with the symbol from A Clockwork Orange, because I'm a fan of it but also because it just fits in general. I think a lot of people look at milk and think childhood and innocence and growing, and in a Clockwork Orange the main character drinks milk laced with drugs, an ultimate symbol of his innocence being infected.

So by calling it Milk, I think it's just another way of saying that this girl has been infected by drugs, is hooked on them, and so her childlike innocence and naivety has been taken away by her using. I also don't think she's aware of this fact, as Matty is telling the story from an outsider viewing her addiction.

I think NovaCircuit below has the right idea. Because Milk was written in the band’s early days, when they were all based in Manchester (where they grew up), I feel like it’s a story about his relationship with a girl her knew who went off the rails after a break up. Matty was no doubt fully engaging in her self-destructive behaviour with her, but she was still getting over her ex (“talking about missing him”). It’s got a similar vibe to Sex, in that it’s sexy but sort of wrong. It sounds to me like Matty is her shoulder to cry on, but is also getting mashed up with her and then getting off with her. In Sex, he describes a relationship with a girl where “all [they] seem to do is talk about sex” and when they’re “on the bed in [his] room” she says “no!” Could the girl in Milk be the same girl that he was trying it on with in Sex, but she’s now broken up with her boyfriend...?

I disagree with NovaCircuit re the second line: I think it is quite sexual. In certain situations, women have a way of saying “we’re off soon” with their eyes (and it’s not about getting off work).

I really like how in this era of The 1975, when Matty was a teenager through to his early 20s, his depictions of relationships were very pure and really quite ordinary. There’s the guy in MONEY who “likes to get blown” and has “new clothes” and a “bloody nose, quietly walking back home” (tbh this could be a self portrait from Matty). The line, “Your brother is just sat there, he said that you felt snide” in The City makes me think of an average night out in Manchester, though “next one’s the MD”, so perhaps not so average! Even Menswear describes a pretty funny wedding scene, or at least I’ve always seen it that way. This ordinariness had completely faded by album 2: She’s American is the total opposite, all glitz and glamour, diets and teeth-fixing. A Change of Heart back-references the first album, but by this point we feel that Matty is quite removed from his roots and is exploring the hedonistic fakery of LA.

I think that Milk fits perfectly into this pure, youthful era of the band and I think the raw energy in the drums and guitars is really special. It’s very powerful and I love it.