What I think.
CALL 911 is a really good song, and after actually reading the lyrics, I think there is more going on here than I initially gave it credit for. It is also a very clear connection to AERYA’s previous work. The dramatic way she talks about heartbreak, the red dress, the mascara, the taxi, the almost cinematic exaggeration of everything that is happening, all of that feels very familiar to the world she has already created.
I really like the main idea of treating heartbreak almost like an emergency. She sees a picture of this person with someone else and suddenly she is “dying,” there is “blood on the floor,” someone needs to call 911, and by the end she has basically turned a rejection into her own murder scene. Obviously none of it is literal, and that is what makes the song fun. She knows she is being dramatic. There is even a line where she basically admits it, and I think that self-awareness is important because otherwise some of these lyrics could easily become way too much.
There are also some really good details in the writing. “You said you needed space, so I gave you the sky” is probably one of my favorites, and the whole second verse is very AERYA. She is heartbroken in a restaurant, but she is still worried about whether her sadness looks good. That mix of genuine emotion with vanity and drama is probably the most interesting part of the song. Even when she is completely falling apart, she wants the tragedy to look beautiful.
And sonically, I really like CALL 911. The sound fits her extremely well, and I think that is another reason why the connection to her older material works. It feels like something that belongs in the same universe without simply sounding like an old song with a different title. AERYA clearly knows how to sell this kind of dramatic, confident pop, and the chorus is strong enough to make the whole concept work.
My main issue is still the image she keeps returning to. Even though the character here is heartbroken, she is still presented as glamorous, dramatic, beautiful and eventually powerful enough to come back from the dead. By the bridge, she is already putting her heels back on and turning her “survival” into a resurrection. It is fun, but I do think AERYA is starting to repeat this idea of always having to be the glamorous, untouchable woman who gets hurt and then comes back even stronger.
I don’t think that ruins CALL 911 at all, especially because the concept is executed really well here. I just don’t want every new song to find another way of reaching the same image. There are already several sides of AERYA that could be explored more, and I think showing some vulnerability without immediately turning it back into power could actually make her more interesting.
Still, CALL 911 is very good. The production works, the concept is clear, the lyrics have some genuinely clever moments, and there is enough humor and exaggeration to give the song personality. It connects really naturally to AERYA’s older work, which I like, while still having a concept of its own. My problem is much more about how often she returns to this type of character than anything specifically wrong with the song itself.
