Singled Out: Lou Emery's The Moves

Pop-rocker Lou Emery recently released her latest single "The Moves," and to celebrate we asked her to tell us about the track. Here is the story:

When I sat down to write "The Moves," I knew two things off the bat: I wanted to write an upbeat, funky song, and I wanted it to be about having a crush. There are so many songs about different parts of relationships, but I wanted to specifically explore that "butterflies" feeling right at the beginning. Personally, I think the most exhilarating part of a romance, or even of life itself, is being in the crush stage, where the person is all you can think about. You get excited for every little interaction with them, and you overanalyze and dissect any time they speak or even look at you. You know, the whole, "He said 'hey' to me today, but you didn't hear the way he said it-it was kind of flirty, and did you catch it when he looked my way as I was leaving the room?" Ah! It's just so fun! And then I thought, let's take it a step further, where I don't even really want to know whether he likes me back for sure, because I want to extend that excitement stage forever! So that's what the song is about.

The bass line and the verses came to me pretty quickly. But I had a super hard time writing the chorus, and it's kind of funny how I finally wrote it. I couldn't think of the right words, and I needed it to be a big, fun musical moment. So I was stuck for a while, until I actually remembered this other song I had written right before, called "Wondering." I wasn't really loving "Wondering," and it was about a partner cheating on me (very different vibes!). But the lyrics of the chorus were, "I'll be wondering each time you're wondering now / who you've found in your head again"-which, in the original context of a cheating partner, was about angrily wondering who he was thinking about instead of me. But I thought, hey, if I take that chorus, and bump up the tempo, and switch up the chords, and change the context surrounding the lyrics, it just might work! Because if you put the same words into the context of "The Moves," and make them about having a crush, then they tell a story about the fun cat-and-mouse game of flirtation. Now I'm "wondering" if the guy is thinking about me, too, in the romantic way I think about him.

The song took years to produce, though. I think we recorded the drums originally in 2021! The track went through several iterations that were fine, but didn't fully capture the fun, flirty excitement of the lyrics. In 2024, we basically took a months-long break from it, until bam, in spring 2025, my producer sent me a new updated recording that leaned more into a pop-style production. And that was it! The energy, the funky guitars, the playful background vocals, the powerful lead vocals, the lively percussion-it finally sounded like a sonic crush!

And yes, I did have a crush at the time when I wrote this song. He was a musician, and he was in my band. So he would play this song live and (hopefully) had no idea it was about him. But I'm not really that good at being subtle, hence why there are all these musician references in the lyrics. Did I really think I could write lines like "throw me like a syncopation" and "lay down a groove with me," and my musician-crush would have no idea? Hopefully, if he figured it out, he was flattered. He never made "the move," though!

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here

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