Cigarettes After Sex, the dreamy, sultry noir-rock outfit fronted by singer-songwriter Greg Gonzalez, returns today with news of a new album, X’s, as well as the project’s lead single. It’s called “Tejano Blue,” and it’s partially an ode to the regional Texas music—popularized by Selena in the early ’90s—that played in the background of Gonzalez’s youth.
“I grew up in El Paso & Tejano music is huge there,” Gonzalez said in a press release. “You could go to a lot of the bars in the city & hear artists like Selena, Los Ángeles Azules & La Mafia playing over the speakers. It was in the atmosphere around me back then, but I always rejected it & gravitated towards anything else I was attracted to, really.”
Years later, after he’d moved to New York City, Gonzalez started listening to Selena’s 1992 single “Como La Flor.” Around the same time, he was also digging the Scottish dream-pop band Cocteau Twins. That led to an epiphany.
“I had the idea then to try to combine both of their sounds somehow, which felt a bit strange, but also felt like it was coming from a genuine place of rediscovering & finally connecting with the music that I heard around me in my youth,” Gonzalez said.
In the press release, Gonzalez also says X’s was inspired by a four-year relationship whose dissolution left him gutted. “Tejano Blue” is seemingly about this romance, and at this stage, at least, it doesn’t sound so bad.
We wanted to fuck with real love
Wanted it sweet, so pure and warm
Never only sleepin’ over
We wanted to fuck like all the time
The pre-chorus gives the impression these two are fully locked into each other. On the dance floor, she only has eyes for him.
And when you say you want it all, I know you want it all
Baby, take it all from me
And when you drag me on the floor and the blue tejano’s on
You keep your eyes on me
The woozy, gauzy hum of the guitars and keyboard amps up slightly on the chorus, as these lovers ignore the general rules of leather care.
So get in the waves, swim in your leather
I always will make it feel like you were the last one
So get in the waves like it was the first time
Bless your heart, make you part of my life forever
In the second verse, Gonzalez describes his girlfriend’s scandalous attire and recalls a popular video of Madonna performing “Holiday” on her 1990 Blonde Ambition Tour.
In shorts so high waist
The girl in the arcade said they were the shortest ever
And the rest like “Holiday”
The live one where she sang, dancing in a polka dot top
X’s is slated to drop July 12. “The record feels brutal,” said Gonzalez in his statement. “I could sit and talk about this loss to someone, but that wouldn’t scratch the surface. I have to really write about it, sing about it, have the music, and then I can start to analyze and learn from it. Or just relive it—in a good way. I don’t have that Eternal Sunshine-thing of wanting to forget.”
You can read all the lyrics to “Tejano Blue” on Genius now.
