From the album minor
This is a song about someone trying to perform recovery before they've actually started it. She narrates her own healing as if it's already happened, then immediately undercuts every claim with evidence that nothing has changed. The question 'am I over you?' is answered by the fact that she's still writing songs structured entirely around this person's absence.
How come you're not still in my head?
She frames this as surprise, like she's discovered she's moved on. But the entire verse before it is a catalog of obsessive behavior. The question reveals what she doesn't realize: if you have to ask why someone isn't haunting you anymore, they still are.
I'm not chasing feelings that I don't understand / I'm still chasing feelings that I don't understand
The song's only structural change is switching one word. Same melody, same phrasing, but 'not' becomes 'still' and the entire thesis collapses. She thought she was done, then admits mid-song she was lying to herself about being done.
Thought that I'd be good the day I took down all your pictures in my room
Taking down the pictures was supposed to be the finish line, proof of recovery. Instead it was just a gesture, performed as if healing had already happened. The action didn't create the feeling. It just made the room emptier.
You're closing every door, but now I'm looking for an opening
This might be about wanting them back, or it might just be about needing the situation to feel unfinished so she can keep circling it. Either way, she's reframing their absence as something she's still negotiating instead of something that's already over.
The title presents 'under' and 'over' as alternatives, but the song reveals they're the same state. She's underwater because she's trying to be over someone before she's ready. The whole song is her narrating recovery while actively not recovering, mistaking the performance of moving on for the real thing.
Gracie Abrams' "Under / Over" depicts someone narrating their own recovery as though it's already complete, then immediately contradicting each claim with evidence that nothing has shifted, in Scalpel's line-by-line reading. The song's central question, am I over you, is answered by the fact that Abrams structures the entire track around the other person's absence, revealing that the performance of healing masks an ongoing preoccupation.
"Under / Over" by Gracie Abrams explores performing recovery before it happens, the person is a blank, swimming as stuckness, and she doesn't trust her own thoughts. The central thread is performing recovery before it happens: She describes healing milestones (bed to functioning, letters unsent, pictures down) as if they worked, then immediately admits they didn't work at all. These themes come from Scalpel's line-by-line analysis of the lyrics.
"Under / Over" by Gracie Abrams was released on July 14, 2020 on the album "minor". Scalpel's analysis covers the full lyrics of the 2020 release.
Scalpel's line-by-line analysis of "Under / Over" by Gracie Abrams lands here: The title presents 'under' and 'over' as alternatives, but the song reveals they're the same state. She's underwater because she's trying to be over someone before she's ready.