When LA pop trio MUNA released their single Big Stick, in advance of their fourth album Dancing on the Wall, they described it as 'the most overtly political song' they'd ever released. It felt like an understatement.

At a time in which so many musicians tiptoe around global issues, MUNA dropped a two-minute synth-pop banger whose lyrics left no room for confusion.

Beginning with satirical portraits of late-stage capitalism and white-flight fearmongering, it crests with singer Katie Gavin spitting this verse: "America gives more than America takes/we give weapons to dictators in apartheid states/we give kids in Palestine PTSD/but we'll never fuckin' ever give them something to eat."

When the band formed in 2013, Gavin and guitarist Naomi McPherson were each, they recall, "studying critical theory in college", grounding the band in political conversation. Big Stick just marks the first time they've laid it out so explicitly in song.

"We wanted to really make an album that feels like what it means to be alive in this time," says McPherson. "To not discuss the world around us, and not ground part of the world of the album in the world that we're all living in, felt creatively and intellectually dishonest."

In conversation with Anthony Carew on The International Pop Underground, MUNA's Gavin, McPherson and Josette Maskin talk about political songwriting, their early sophisti-pop influences, and how queer theory informs Dancing on the Wall's lyrical depictions of conflicting emotions.

Feature image: Dean Bradshaw