We’ve all been there.

We’re on a night out in town with our friends, just looking to have fun and let off some steam after a long week in work.

You and your friend group have successfully navigated the minefield that is the process of choosing where you’re going to spend your night.

So far, it looks like you’ve made the right decision. This place seems cool. Nice people. Great live music band.

And then you get stuck talking to someone that you just don’t want to talk to… and escape seems nigh on impossible…

This is an experience that all of us will have had at some stage in our lives, and the new single by Brí, the Offaly singer/songwriter, addresses it perfectly.

Polite is an excellent exploration of the sensation of being out for a night out and getting stuck talking to a stranger when all you want to do is enjoy time with your friends. There is nothing menacing or threatening suggested by the stranger in question, it’s just more of a case that they are irritating and unwanted. The song also hints at the suggestion the dilemma that we all face on nights out, do we be rude and standoffish with people who try talk to us, or do we be polite and accommodating and potentially risk a longer conversation.

“I’m just trying to be nice, I’m just trying to be polite,

Don’t mean I want to spend my night, listening to you talk about your life”

The song addresses the decisions that we are all faced with when put in this situation, do we rudely push past the person and rejoin our friends or do we stay “polite” and hope that the conversation ends soon. The imagery that Brí uses is particularly affecting as it feels as though everything is happening in slow motion as her new friend, humorously referred to as Picasso, is seemingly unloading their entire life unto our unwitting protagonist.

“Picasso paints his picture, thousands of words,

I can’t believe it’s taken this long to be heard,

Time’s moving so slowly since you began your story,

It’s truly old I’m growing”

The instrumentation on the track is also especially effective at getting across the sentiment of the song, with the ethereal nature of the guitar almost representing the confusion that comes when you are stuck in the middle of such a conversation.

It’s sure to be a soundtrack for many.

MK