Toronto-based producer, film composer, and author Meg Remy anticipates her intuitive and adventurous U.S. Girls album Scratch It (out June 20 Via 4AD) with a new single entitled ‘Like James Said,’ an ELO-styled nugget of AM gold and nod to James Brown about the healing power of dancing alone.
Remy’s own lyrical response to Brown’s ‘Get Up Offa That Thing‘, the track showcases her great – and characteristically tragicomic – phrasing, notably on the exaggerated pause in the line, “I’m the queen of exercising […] pain.” It was written alongside Rich Morel, adding to his and Remy’s long string of hits together (“Rosebud,” “4 American Dollars”). ‘Like James Said’ also arrives alongside a single-shot dance performance, directed by and starring comedian Tom Henry. Earlier this month, Remy introduced Scratch It with the release of an epic 12-minute lead single, ‘Bookends‘ – a sprawling ballad that pays tribute to Remy’s late friend and former Power Trip frontman Riley Gale, through the lens of Remy’s reading of John Carey’s Eye witness To History, a historical collection of 300+ eye witness accounts of great world events spanning twenty-four centuries. The single arrived alongside a cinematic short directed by Caity Arthur.
U.S. Girls – Like James Said (Official Video)
When an artist follows her instinct, rather than money or trends, she can find inspiration anywhere. When Remy was asked to play a festival in Hot Springs, Arkansas – over one thousand miles away from her Toronto home – it was instinct that led her to enlist guitarist friend Dillon Watson (D. Watusi, Savoy Motel, Jack Name) to assemble a one-time Nashville-based band for the occasion. The performance went so well that she decided to ride that energy right back to where the impromptu band had initially rehearsed, in Music City itself, kick starting the journey toward Scratch It. In just ten days, Remy and the band – Watson on guitar, Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, Loretta Lynn) on bass, Domo Donohoon drums, and both Jo Schornikow and Tina Norwood on keys, as well as harmonica legend Charlie McCoy (Elvis, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison) – recorded Scratch It live off the floor with minimal overdubs, mixed to tape. Closeness and ease emanate from this core band with Remy’s singular voice sparkling on top of every tune, the most relaxed it has ever been.
Scratch It weaves together country, gospel, garage rock, soul, disco, folk balladry, and more, with Remy’s masterful songwriting threaded throughout. Her choice to discard the computer-based production of previous albums in favor of two-inch tape serves the songs well, introducing an element of sonic shapeshifting expected from an artist nearly twenty years into making records. If instinct was an instrument, Remy would be a virtuoso. Scratch It and see.
Praise for U.S. Girls:
“America’s most vital band” – The Guardian
“Avant-pop provocateur” – Rolling Stone
“Meghan Remy draws from the lives of others, making a shell game of identity.” – The New Yorker
U.S. Girls
Scratch It
Scratch it Out June 20 Via 4AD
Tracklisting:
1. Like James Said
2. Dear Patti
3. Firefly on the 4th of July
4. The Clearing
5. Walking Song
6. Bookends
7. Emptying the Jimador
8. Pay Streak
9. No Fruit
ABOUT U.S. GIRLS
Originally from Illinois, Meg Remy is established as one of the most acclaimed songwriters to emerge from Toronto’s eclectic underground music scene where she currently lives. As the creative force behind the musical entity U.S. Girls, her celebrated decades-long discography includes three Polaris Prize shortlisted and Juno-nominated albums on 4AD: Half Free (2015), In A Poem Unlimited (2018), Heavy Light (2020), as well as Bless This Mess (2023) and live compilation Lives (2023).
Remy has exhibited collage work and directed several music videos and other video art works including her short film Woman’s Advocate (2014). She published her first book, a memoir called Begin By Telling (2021), and is working on a follow-up. Recently, Remy has turned film composer, scoring Grace Glowicki’s horror comedy Dead Lover, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Her producer credits include Bria Salmena’s Big Dog (2025, Sub Pop). As a platform and persona, U.S. Girls operates on a uniquely out-of-time wavelength, alternately wronged and rueful, classic but contemporary, bruised vignettes of poetic Americana through a feminist lens.
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