I’m not going to be around on Friday to put up a New Music Friday post this week. I was just planning on leaving you high and dry, but then Mandy Moore dropped this new song yesterday and I have thoughts. So you’re getting a New Music Wednesday post instead.

“When I Wasn’t Watching” is Mandy Moore’s first new song in 10 years. I was never a Mandy Moore fan previously. It’s not even that I disliked her music. I’m just not sure I even know it. I obviously knew of Mandy Moore, and I’m sure I’ve heard some of her music before but I could not name you a single song of hers. So it’s not like I’ve been dying for new music by her. But this song was everywhere yesterday, so I thought I would check it out.

Apparently her ex-husband, Ryan Adams, was very controlling and basically stopped her from making music hence the long hiatus. I never understood their relationship. Now it turns out that Ryan Adams, although I still adore his music, is an even more terrible person than I thought. I wish people who make things that I love would stop being terrible so I was allowed to enjoy it. I miss Ryan Adams music. But I digress.

Now Mandy Moore is remarried to Taylor Goldsmith the frontman of Dawes, whose music I also really love and who is not a terrible person. So yay progress! He has been working with her on new music, and you can really hear it. I don’t know if he’s actually playing the guitar in this track, but the instrumental part of the song sure as heck sounds like Dawes, which I am here for.

Overall though, I do not understand this song. The instrumental track and the melody she’s singing to do not seem to go together at all. At times I feel like it’s even out of sync. It’s like someone took an instrumental track from a Dawes song and then took a lyric track from a different Mandy Moore song and made a not so great mashup of them. Reception of the song seems to be fairly positive, so maybe I’m just the one out of sync. What do you think?