It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to crack the many thinly veiled space references in ‘Player of Games’
Break-up songs are a time-honoured tradition in the music industry and over the years many fans have occupied their time trying to decode who they are about. Sometimes it’s not immediately obvious and some investigation is required. Other times it’s pretty easy – Ariana straight up names her exes in “thank u, next” while the members of Fleetwood Mac stare directly into the souls of their former partners while delivering devastating lyrics about them on stage in front of thousands of people.
Offering her own contribution to the ‘pretty easy’ category is famous communist, future founder of a lesbian space commune, and the Marie Antoinette of the TikTok era, Grimes.
Over the weekend, Grimes dropped her latest single “Player of Games” and listeners quickly picked up some hints that the song might maybe possibly be referencing her recent break-up from her boyfriend of three years, Elon Musk. Let’s look at the evidence.
The song opens with Grimes asking an unnamed former lover, “Baby would you still love me / Out on Europa / Or will you forget?”
Back in July, it was announced that Musk’s private rocket company SpaceX had won the contract to launch NASA’s first mission to explore – you guessed it – Europa, Jupiter's icy moon. The Europa Clipper mission is due for blastoff in October 2024. If that wasn’t enough, a post-breakup Grimes also previously joked that she will be colonising Europa separately from Musk for the aforementioned lesbian space commune.
Following that pretty cut-and-dry reference to Musk, the song continues with several more space mentions, “Baby how can I compare / To the adventure out there? / Sail away to the cold expanse of space / Even love couldn't keep you in your place.”
When Musk first announced the news of the split in September, he pointed the blame towards being preoccupied by his professional life. “We are semi-separated but still love each other, see each other frequently and are on great terms,” he told Page Six. “It’s mostly that my work at SpaceX and Tesla requires me to be primarily in Texas or traveling overseas and her work is primarily in LA. She’s staying with me now and Baby X is in the adjacent room.”
Aside from these pretty obvious references to Musk’s pursuit of space, Grimes makes several mentions of games and players in the song. “He has to be the best / Player of games,” she sings, followed by, “I'm in love with the greatest gamer / But he'll always love the game / More than he loves me.”
An avid gamer, Musk has spoken about his love for video games in the past, listing Deus Ex, Half-Life 2, Bioshock, Mass Effect 2, Fallout: New Vegas and Saints Row IV among his favourite video games. Not only that, but Musk previously worked at a video game company in Palo Alto before founding Zip2 and Tesla, and once tweeted about a series of books he was reading about a “semi-utopian galactic future” that includes a volume called Player of Games.
The evidence seems pretty compelling but listen to the song below and decide for yourselves. And who knows, maybe the full music video, which Grimes shared on Instagram would be out soon, will reveal all.