EXZENYA’s text in Regulator or My Dopamine describes in verdant language the sensation of romantic infatuation and being in love in the language of drugs and chemisty in a new, lyrical fashion. The song isn’t merely talking about being in love—it analogizes the experience in terms of some sort of high, some sort of rush that can’t be surpassed by contrivance. It doesn’t resort to the familiar romantic clichés, rather making strange, successful analogues between the experience of being in love and the sensation of the drug in the system. It’s a new selection that allows the listener to better sympathise, in the sympathetic sense, with the overwhelming, effervescent nature of feeling.

All the way through the entire song, EXZENYA insists with strong conviction that being in love enables the person to be better than any external stimulant. Lines imply that the person does not require drugs or medication because with this feeling of being attached, she can have all of what she needs. The implicit theme of possessing an “addiction of one” has the tone of dependency, not the negative—more of the other person being the whole well of stability and joy in the other. The rhymes keep the theme of the premise that being in the presence of the other person enables harmony and bliss, rendering external substances irrelevant.

There’s the strand of moderation, of restraint. EXZENYA equates the partner with the “regulator” of the dopamine, the molecule we in the standard settings relate to pleasure, reward. It’s a wonderful, typical metaphor, in that we’re talking about how within the healthy framework, romance can soothe the individual intellectually, the individual emotionally. She feels buzzed, though, she isn’t. “Too much or too little” verifies that, in that the partner always delivers the right amount—none too much, none too little.

Her metaphoring of the different drugs—heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy, LSD, marijuana—succeeds because there are usually common related phenomena for all of them, and what EXZENYA does is appropriate those in order to describe the sensation she has. When she talks about hurting nowhere, she analogizes to heroin. When the whole world looks better, looks more real, she talks about LSD. Always, though, she comes full circle around the theme that that sensation isn’t produced by drugs—it’s produced by love. It’s dangerous, the analogizing, because the analogs are powerful, but they don’t quite go so far as to romanticize use of the drugs. What they do instead, however, is emphasize how strong intrinsic emotions are.

A repeated chorus that, through repetition, has the effect of speeding up the tempo reinforces the notion that this experience, this feeling, is stable, dependable. Repeating the “no need for designer drugs” reinforces the notion that the speaker’s happiness can be sustained, that it isn’t fleeting. The use of the word “jitterbug” here, colloquial, old dance, creates a sunny, happy counterpoint to the richer imagery of the drugs. It shows that even if the thoughts are heavy, the experience has movement, has happiness.

Even the brief periods in the song in which EXZENYA considers that she has to be hallucinating or dreaming are set in the language of magic, not disorientation. It isn’t being out of control—just being in wonder that something that real can be that surreal. And that allows the song to be full of vulnerability and sincerity. 

Overall, the words in Regulator or My Dopamine are smart, articulate, and bathed in emotion. EXZENYA does a remarkable thing in sustaining a multi-faceted metaphor within the song without the denouement feeling insincere or, well, cyclical. Tension between fullness/intensity and sweetness causes the words to oscillate on the page even as they are protective, yet dictatorially strong. It’s a comfortable declaration of love—more about the ways that attachment can so deeply affect the way that one feels, internally, externally.