From the album C U Girl - Single
This is a song that thinks it's sweet but reveals how selfish longing actually works. Lacy frames missing someone as flattery, tells her to 'be you' while making her entire existence about his absence, and never once asks what she wants. The reversed outro plays the whole thing backwards like rewinding a message you wish you could unsend.
When you hear this song, feel flattered, it's about your face / And how I miss it
He tells her to feel complimented but immediately reduces her to a face he misses, not a person living her own life. The supposed flattery is just objectification dressed up as tribute.
But you're in college now and I'm about to go on tour
The 'but' frames their separate lives as obstacles to his wants, not as valid paths they've both chosen. He's not wishing her well in college. He's explaining why he can't have what he wants right now.
Go 'head and be you, girl
This line pretends to grant permission for her autonomy, but it sits between 'I wanna please you' and 'Can't wait to see you', it's not about her freedom, it's about managing his own loneliness. The permission itself is possessive.
lrig ,uoy ees ot tiaw t'naC
Playing the chorus backwards suggests rewinding, maybe undoing what he just said. Or it's the song eating itself, admitting that all this longing loops back to the same selfish starting point. Either way, it destabilizes the sweetness he tried to project.
The reversed outro might be the most honest part, it's Lacy realizing mid-song that this whole thing loops back to him. What sounds like a love song is really about the loneliness of being on tour and wanting someone to fill it. She's in college. He wrote a song about her face.