“Boys/Girls” (2018) is a single from Torrey Mercer’s self-titled album. The three-minute bubblegum-pop track is a certifiable bi anthem along with its music video. In it, Mercer appears with blonde, shoulder-length hair and wearing a silver lamé minidress or in jeans with a metallic pink jacket. While Mercer (they/them) now identifies as a lesbian, they originally wrote the song to explain their attraction to more than one gender.
The lyrics unfold in two deliberate acts. First, Mercer playfully details their attraction to men:
I like it when a boy is romantic
I like it when his heart is on his sleeve
I like it when he’s good with little kids and
I kinda like to watch him fall asleep…
I like it when he gets a little nerdy
I like it when he’s blushing on his cheeks
I like it when he tells me not to worry
I like it when he knows to be discreet
I like boys
The heart doesn’t get a choice
Sorry, I can’t avoid
It’s just something that I enjoy.
Then, the song pivots with a cheeky stutter:
I like boys, boys, boys, boys,
I like… Girls!
The second verse celebrates attraction to women with equal fervor:
I like it when a girl’s got swagger
I like it when she’s got somewhere to be
I like it when she doesn’t have manners
I like it when she knows what to do to me.
And bridge dispels any binary assumptions, declaring:
I like boys, girls, and in between
I like all of the above
I need you to be good to me
For me to fall in love
There’s no sides, there’s no right and wrong
I know where I belong
So don’t tell me it won’t be long
Just let me sing my own song!
The music video blends live-action and animation, framing the song as Mercer’s response to a man at a party who asks, “Where’s your boyfriend at?” After Mercer’s lyrical explanation, the man nods approvingly, giving her the thumbs-up. Though the word “bisexual” never appears in the lyrics, the video is drenched in bi pride — think flag colors, bi community cameos (including of our beloved Nicole Pacent with whom we recently talked), and unapologetic queer joy.
At the time of writing, Mercer identified as bi and sought to channel that identity into their art. In a Pride interview upon the video’s release, they reflected:
Ever since I realized it was a part of my identity, and came out to myself privately during the summer of 2016, I knew that one day I wanted to bring it into my music. At that time, I was way too scared to do more than just think about it, but it’s very surreal to see how far I’ve come. I wrote ‘Boys/Girls’ at the end of last year with a writer named Tova Litvin, and I remember telling her I had this idea to write a song about bisexuality with a verse about boys and a verse about girls. So, when we were in the session, she asked me what I like about both, and we wrote it down. She helped me shape the verses and chorus melodies, and I fleshed out the chorus lyrics and bridge to bring the song together. From the moment we wrote it, I knew it was special.
Director Sheena Midori Brevig, also bi, highlighted in the same interview how their shared identity fueled the video’s creation.
A streaming success, “Boys/Girls” has amassed over 14,000 YouTube views and over 200,000 Spotify streams to date. While Mercer’s identification has evolved, the song remains a vibrant, inclusive artifact of bi representation — proof that queer art can outlive the labels that birth it.