Lock up your mothers.
Charlie Puth has made a multi-platinum career out of singing precisely what people want to hear, and now, even mothers aren’t safe from his smooth-talking with today’s release of “Mother.”
“He’s such a nice boy, so well mannered,” Puth sings in the opening verse of his second single of 2019. “He’s so much better than the last one you brought around / Please and thank you, everything matters / I’m gonna make sure that she knows I’m the best she’s found / The moment she walks out the door I’m not pretending anymore.”
In less than 12 hours, the song’s accompanying music video notched over one million views. In it, Puth’s performance shots have him laying shirtless by a pool, and the narrative plays out as he invisibly tags along with the teenaged subjects. “Mother is about the high school experience I never had,” he tweeted.
A teenage girl is in an argument with her parents at the kitchen table before storming out to meet up with her love interest and friends. They cruise around and go night swimming in a stranger’s pool, make out and smoke weed.
The beat pulsates like a young heart indulging in something for the first time.
“If your mother knew, all the things we do,” Puth softly sings. “If your mother knew, she’d keep me so far away from you.”
Puth’s signature falsettos hit just right and propel forward what has already been an edgy year for him.
In late August, Puth returned with a single titled “I Warned Myself,” his first release since his 2018 Grammy-nominated album Voicenotes. Where “Mother” finds Puth doing what he knows he shouldn’t and coyly getting away with it, “I Warned Myself” peers into his conscience. Together, the two tracks put pop on notice.
“Mother” was co-written and produced alongside proven hitmakers Ryan Tedder, Louis Bell and Andrew Watt, and Dawit N.M directed the video.
