The most absurd paradox in the world– also one that I gleefully employ as a weapon to my own rhetorical benefit on a daily basis– is the notion of common sense. There is nothing truly as ridiculous, on a granular level, than the idea of an unwaveringly correct, morally impartial understanding of the world to which most people, if pressed, would agree. However– isn’t it just so fun to pretend? If someone behaves in a way that I deem strange– isn’t it just common sense that they’re wrong? Shouldn’t everyone– at least everyone worth listening to– back me up on this? Common sense is my best friend, because she’s always on my side. 

Okay Kaya seems to agree. In the songwriting luminary’s newest single, “Check Your Face,” she intones: “When common sense and me are dancing it makes for funny conversation/when me and common sense are dancing, that’s a sweeeeeet relationship.” The singer, broody and introspective and glamorous as ever, flirts with common sense throughout the groovy track, as if laughter is simmering just inside a translucent, melodic bladder: “C’mon common sense I’m a dimwit! I can’t mooooove without you.” 

The single is the third off of the singer’s forthcoming LP, Oh My God– That’s So Me, out September 6th, and is accompanied by a gorgeous stop-motion music video directed by Lou Beauchard. Alongside previous singles–  “The Groke,” fizzy and upbeat, and boney, beautiful  “Undulation Days,”-- Okay Kaya continues to assert her robust, evocative lyrical prowess, teasing a project that promises breadth; hope.

The Norwegian-American singer wrote the self-proclaimed “slacker disco song” in a frigid winter. “If you’re gonna dance alone in your basement,” she says, “might as well make a song-to-dance match.” And match it does– in the frenzied loneliness of winter, who better to intertwine yourself with, who better to sling your limbs lazily around than your own self righteousness? In the depths of your own delusion, take a look at yourself from the outside– split your skull in half, as Beauchard so beautifully depicts– and giggle at your own foreignness. After all, as Clive James says: “Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.”