In “A Love Fool,” THE NEW CITIZEN KANE provides a new, raw account of what it feels like to fall in and out of love too quickly and for the wrong person. The lyrics oscillate between self-awareness and emotional torment in describing the artist’s internal struggle between romantic ideals and painful disillusion. There is vulnerability throughout that resonates deeply for anyone who ever grasped for love when they shouldn’t have.

It starts out talking about a man who in the beginning had been perceived as charming and gentle but turned out quite differently. The song has an immediate tone of regret and confusion which lingers throughout. THE NEW CITIZEN KANE never even tries to hide emotional contradiction—a constant tug of war between getting on and always pining for a return that never really was.

What stands out is the manner in which the artist admits so freely doing what they swore they would not do. Something is stated in words amid friends but executed otherwise when one is alone, and that reveals just how difficult it is to release once passion is in its peak. The head versus heart tug-of-war is what unfolds in the lyrics. The beauty of emotional dependence is described in a way that is direct yet passionate.

The chorus is where truly the message of being in love with the wrong individual comes through. Using words like “tripping” and being “strung out,” there is an addiction feel that is conveyed, and it is certain that through these lyrics, love isn’t just emotional in its form—but mental, physical, and all-consuming. The fact that “I’ve lost my head” is repeated just adds to that lost out-of-control feeling of something having completely taken over.

In the second verse, the artist goes for gallows humor in labeling the subject “schizophrenic” and “a little manic.” Those are some heavy words, and they are being applied in an attempt to express just how confusing and unstable the relationship was. Even with all of its warning signs waving in its face, though, THE NEW CITIZEN KANE admits that it can’t get past it.

There is some sarcastic and melancholic comparison of the object of his affections to candy—candy being sweeter and more additive but unhealthy. The mention of a toothache is an apt metaphor for suffering from holding onto what one desires but is unhealthy for one. We see him being that conscious of what he ought to do but simply cannot. That degree of self-awareness adds richness emotionally to the song but not an overabundance in passion.

At the conclusion of it all, repetition of some of these lines serves as a reminder that the artist is trapped in a loop—trying to return but getting drawn under repeatedly by habits and desires. The lyrics don’t have an answer, and that is what makes it real. The lyrics are what most people have gone through after a breakup—the hope for the other party to come back out of nowhere and get everything right because they know in themselves that they won’t. NEW CITIZEN KANE succeeds in expressing that tug-of-war of feelings in its raw and unfiltered wordplay that has an uncensored sound. “A Love Fool” is an infectious emotional portrait of what it is like to blindly love and hurt with a hope.