Untouchable

BANKS makes songs designed to pull you close, songs that feel like they want your body against another body, want you to feel that friction. But she’s never there—she’s somewhere else, untouchable. Beggin For Thread is just the latest version of this move. The video’s black and white, beautiful people in that fever-dream state, skin and heat and proximity, and she’s keeping distance from all of it even as it’s built around her.

She’s been perfect at this for years. The trick is that wanting someone who won’t want you back sharpens the feeling somehow. I’m not sure if that’s clever or just how desire works, but she’s definitely leaned into understanding it.

Beggin For Thread doesn’t surprise me. It shouldn’t. She’s committed to this—the coldness, the refusal to soften, the consistency of keeping you at exactly the right distance to stay interesting. There’s something almost mean about it, in the best way. I respect it more than I enjoy it, most of the time. But that respect is the thing that keeps me coming back.