Youth In Revolt: The Top Five Lines from The 1975's "Chocolate"

English alternative rock band The 1975 are gaining traction both in the States and across the pond with the release of their latest EP, IV via Vagrant Records. The first single, Chocolate, follows two miscreants through a night of delinquent capers revolving around chocolate (that’s hoodlum’s cant for marijuana), and we at Rap Genius are breaking down the top five lines. – By RapGenius/StereoIQ editor, John Dickinson

5. “Hey now, call it a split /

Cause you know that you will /

You bite your friends like chocolate”

Vocalist Matthew Healy of The 1975 beings the song by outlining the personality of a girl who is just as impetuous and rash as she is an emulator. Perhaps Healy is using the term “bite” in the colloquial sense, implying that she is aping all of her friends’ styles, while the first line indicates that the two may in fact be newly broken up.

“You say we’ll go where nobody knows /
With guns hidden under our petticoats /
No we’re never gonna quit it /”

Here we see that ruffian imagery paired with underlying sexuality. Determined to make the most of their youth, the duo claims to carry lethal force under their petticoats at all times. This however, may also be interpreted as a sexual double entendre operating within the same line…we’ll let you infer.

“We run away from the boys in the blue /
And my car smells like chocolate /

Think about what they say /

Think about how to think /”

Pot-induced paranoia perhaps? Here we see Healy playing mind games with the girl as they’re fleeing from what they believe to be the police in their dank-smelling car, instructing her to challenge authority.

2. “Yeah we’re dressed in black from head to toe”

The 1975 build on their thuggish theme, painting the protagonists as burglars donned in all black. This may be a sarcastic social commentary on the fact that marijuana related crimes, though insignificant in nature, are treated as serious offenses like robbery or violent crime.

“I think we better go, seriously better go /
Said it’s better than hanging on /”

These lines have dual functions as (1) a possible ending to their nefarious joy ride, resulting in their dual suicide, or (2) a metaphor for the relationship of the our Bonnie and Clyde, which seems to be slowly dissipating. Healy may be suggesting that the two put themselves out of their misery rather than continue on with their naivety.