Hi, I’m LEX the Lexicon Artist, and this is Alter Ego: Explained.
The Redesign is a song about phone and technology addiction, through the metaphor of a dysfunctional relationship.
The Redesign is one of the earliest songs in the life cycle of Alter Ego. I began work on it in mid-2018, shortly after the release of Raging Ego. How do I know that? Well, mostly because of this.
In June 2018, I visited New York City and saw a book titled “How To Break Up With Your Phone” on a shelf of new reads at the Strand Bookstore near Union Square. I never bought the book, probably because I knew it would never work on me. (As you probably know I have a bad case of phone addiction.) Despite not picking it up, the title of the book stuck in my mind throughout the trip, and sometime later I began to write a song based on that title.
My goal was to draw parallels between phone addiction and an obsessive and codependent relationship. To achieve that goal was to conjure up an unseemly amount of phone-related double entendres to use throughout. As many as there are, the first verse is supposed to be pretty ambiguous as far as who or what the protagonist is referring to. There’s nothing that indicates that the object of their affections is an inanimate object. All they’re doing is describing their situation and the way it makes them feel, and so it could still conceivably be a standard breakup song at that point.
The second verse is where we start lifting the curtain and making the metaphor obvious. I wanted the Phone to come across as a whiny lovesick fuckboi who is hard to get rid of, because he’ll remind you of all that he does for you, all that you owe him, and the contract you made to be together forever. Phones were made to be addictive and depended upon, and so are some people. I picked Coolzey to be the featured vocalist because I knew he could effectively deliver the plaintive appeal of a sympathetic villain you love to hate. Who hasn’t had a Phone Fuckboi at some point in their life?
The third verse is where all gloves come off (you know, so you can swipe on your phone. I have phone screen-compatible gloves, by the way.) The protagonist asserts themselves and the need to change their life, and with every reference to the Phone makes it clear that “you’re just a phone; you have no real power over me.” The double entendres get very literal until the metaphor is unquestionable. We think they’ve won the battle, until you realize at the end that they haven’t. They’re not breaking up with their phone; they’re just trading it in for a new model. Despite all the posturing and affirmations, they failed. This is the first sign of bleakness and despair that indicates that change isn’t so easy, which comes back to haunt the protagonist many times throughout the album.
This song isn’t drawing from any real relationship of mine. It’s 80% about my phone addiction and 20% inspired by various personal connections I’ve had over the years. In the context of the album, The Redesign is actually the first step on our protagonist’s journey to alter the ego. Question and I Know are a unit of strong openers, but content-wise, they reinforce the status quo and are essentially rehashing and improving on successful elements of previous works. The Redesign is the first track that experiments with a type of sound, storytelling, and literary conceit that I haven’t tried before. It’s relaxed but not slow; it’s chill but not too soft; it deals with a concept outside of my past repertoire. Most importantly, it’s the start of our story. Our protagonist feels their inertia, notices their problem, and attempts a change. Thematically, anthropomorphizing the Phone is meant to show us how our daily technology can become an extension of ourselves, in the way that a significant other can form a part of you that is hard to give up.
Steve of the Dying of Exposure podcast pointed out something that was really interesting to me. Starting from The Redesign, and including songs like All The Time, Famous, and Augmented, many songs in this album embody the theme “Alter Ego” within themselves: they seem like they might be about one thing, but actually, they’re about something else - maybe. We don’t know which face is the true face of the song. Just like you don’t know which face is the true face of me. How fun!
And thus concludes this Alter Ego: Explained. Welp, time to scroll Facebook until my Face falls off!
LEX the Lexicon Artist combines Internet culture, fandom, punk ethos, and shock humor (not the mean kind) to create an over-the-top explosion of nerdy, dirty, funny raps.
Soul-searching hip-hop from this Florida rapper, with lyrics that dig deep and take an unflinching look at life’s questions. Bandcamp New & Notable May 1, 2023
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