Last Updated on 2025-09-28 by a-indie
The moment carbonation bubbles rise, that instant when sweet candy dissolves.
Who could have imagined that this familiar chemical reaction we all know would become the perfect metaphor for depicting the dangerous allure of love?
MICHELLE’s “Mentos and Coke” is a track released in 2024 by the six-member indie-pop collective from New York, serving as the lead single from their third album ‘Songs About You Specifically’.
It’s a bittersweet yet thrilling song that compares a romantic relationship to Mentos and Coke—one that triggers an uncontrollable reaction the moment two people touch.
This article delves deep into the lyrics of “Mentos and Coke” to unravel the mysteries of its narrative.
Additionally, MICHELLE announced an indefinite hiatus in August 2025, making this song even more meaningful as one of the culminating pieces of their creative work.
Who is MICHELLE
MICHELLE is a six-member indie-pop collective from New York formed in 2018 by producers Julian Kaufman and Charlie Kilgore.
The members consist of the aforementioned two plus Sofia D’Angelo, Layla Ku, Emma Lee, and Jamee Lockard.
Initially planned as a one-album project themed around New York, they decided to continue their activities after their 2018 debut album ‘HEATWAVE’ received critical acclaim.
They embody a modern form of collaboration while creating intimate and organic sounds.
Emma Lee says, “Even friends who have shared almost their entire lives together don’t know each other as intimately as the members of this group,” and this special relationship forms the foundation of their songwriting.
Their third album ‘Songs About You Specifically’ was released on September 27, 2024, and they announced an indefinite hiatus in August 2025.
“Mentos and Coke” Depicts Uncontrollable Love
The “Mentos and Coke” we’re examining today is the lead single from their third album ‘Songs About You Specifically’.
The core of this song lies in the metaphor indicated by its title—the familiar scientific reaction of “Mentos and Coke”.
Just as sweet Mentos creates an uncontrollable explosive reaction when it meets carbonated beverage, their relationship also contains the danger of bubbling up violently and erupting everything once they touch.
What’s depicted throughout the lyrics is a destructive yet irresistible romantic relationship.
The line “Sweet me will tighten around your throat” shows how sweet feelings toward a loved one can simultaneously become poison that torments them.
This contradictory emotion is the source of this song’s complex beauty.
MICHELLE “Mentos and Coke” Lyrics
You and I like Mentos and Coke
I’ll be sweet while you’re stuck in my throat
You and I a bottle rocket
We blow up and I can’t stop it
引用元：Genius
Are you amazed by everybody else or
Do you refuse to be
Are you amazed by everybody else and
What do you mean to me
引用元：Genius
I can’t get much bigger
Without it falling apart
I can’t get much bigger
Long long fuse with a short short trigger
I can’t get much bigger
Without it falling apart
I can’t get much bigger
Long long fuse with a short short trigger
引用元：Genius
You and I like Mentos and Coke
Stable if you like when we explode
Highest highs and lowest of lows
Better that than what I don’t know
引用元：Genius
Are you amazed by everybody else or
Do you refuse to be
Are you amazed by everybody else and
What do you mean to me
引用元：Genius
I can’t get much bigger
Without it falling apart
I can’t get much bigger
Long long fuse with a short short trigger
I can’t get much bigger
Without it falling apart
I can’t get much bigger
Long long fuse with a short short trigger
引用元：Genius
We’ve been going on again, off again
Summer’s calling autumn saying it’s the end
We’ve been going on again, off again
Summer’s calling autumn saying it’s the end
引用元：Genius
You and I like Mentos and Coke
Shaken up it’s all about to blow
引用元：Genius
I can’t get much bigger
Without it falling apart
I can’t get much bigger
Long long fuse with a short short trigger
I can’t get much bigger
Without it falling apart
I can’t get much bigger
Long long fuse with a short short trigger
引用元：Genius
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“Mentos and Coke” Lyric Analysis
What is “Sweet Poison”
Particularly striking in this song is the expression “Sweet me will tighten around your throat.”
This represents not mere sweetness, but dense love intense enough to suffocate the other person.
Just as Mentos’ sweetness reacts with carbonation to create an explosive phenomenon, the protagonist’s love is also both sweet and dangerous for their partner.
This concept of “sweet poison” captures the complex duality of emotions in love.
It poetically expresses through metaphor the irony of how deep affection for a loved one can sometimes result in constraining and tormenting them.
“Long Fuse with Short Trigger”
The repeated “Long long fuse with a short short trigger” in the chorus symbolically expresses the danger of this relationship.
A long fuse but short trigger—meaning it takes time to explode, but once the trigger is pulled, it collapses instantly.
This is also true in real romantic relationships.
Emotions and frustrations built up over a long time can explode all at once from just a trivial trigger, destroying everything.
This song depicts such fragility and precariousness of human relationships through the understandable imagery of explosives.
Poetic Imagery
“Summer’s calling autumn saying it’s the end” is a particularly beautiful passage in these lyrics.
Rather than staying with a literal translation, I rendered it as “Summer calls to autumn saying ‘Now it’s over’.”
By overlaying the end of their relationship with the seasonal transition—an unstoppable great flow that no one can halt—it’s intended to evoke a bittersweet yet beautiful scene in the listener’s heart.
The Metaphor of “Mentos and Coke”
What makes this “Mentos and Coke” metaphor brilliant is that it’s a phenomenon anyone living in modern times knows.
The scientific phenomenon that has been replayed countless times on YouTube has now become a cultural common language.
Julian Kaufman says:
“It’s easy to write cliché love songs or breakup songs. But many of these stories are true. We’re really coming from an honest place.”
The song’s line “We’ve been going on again, off again” represents the essence of this unstable relationship.
A relationship that repeats on and off, naturally coming to an end like the changing seasons.
It’s temporary and uncontrollable like intense chemical reactions, but simultaneously beautiful and memorable.
The Sound That Paints Sweet Self-Destructive Aesthetics
In contrast to the unstable, near-breakdown relationship depicted in the lyrics, the song’s melody is surprisingly sweet and romantic.
The soft acoustic guitar tones, supple yet robust beats, and vocal harmonies musically embody that “sweet poison.”
This beautiful sound perhaps expresses the pure love that certainly exists within destructive romantic relationships and the happiness of those moments.
Just as the chemical reaction between Mentos and Coke shows a beautiful dance of bubbles while being dangerous, this song also tells the story of the beauty in breakdown.
“Mentos and Coke” that MICHELLE left for us is a masterpiece that eternally records the complexity and beauty of modern romance through familiar metaphors and beautiful comparisons.
MICHELLE Album Release
Third Album ‘Songs About You Specifically’
Release Date: September 27, 2024
Track List:
1. Mentos and Coke
2. Blissing
3. Akira
4. Cathy
5. Dropout
6. Noah
7. Missing on One
8. I’m Not Trying
9. Oontz
10. Painkiller
11. Trackstar
View on Amazon
MICHELLE Profile
MICHELLE is a six-member indie-pop collective formed in New York in 2018. Composed of Sofia D’Angelo, Julian Kaufman, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee, and Jamee Lockard. They released debut album ‘HEATWAVE’ (2018), second album ‘AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS’ (2022), and third album ‘Songs About You Specifically’ (2024). They announced an indefinite hiatus in August 2025 and held their final headline show at Webster Hall in New York in October of the same year.
Writer: Tomohiro Yabe(yabori)
After writing for “only in dreams” hosted by Masafumi Gotoh, vocalist of ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, studied music business at a music vocational school.
Has been writing articles about Japanese and international music for over 10 years.
Previously worked at a music CD rental shop with over 100,000 album titles, handling garage rock, psychedelic rock, and Japanese indie rock.
Utilizing these experiences, published 26 issues of the music magazine “BELONG Magazine” themed around “roots rock.”
Currently writes articles based on SEO strategies learned at a web production company. Hobby is watching “Fortune Appraisal: Anything Goes!”
Articles written so far can be found here
Twitter: @boriboriyabori
About BELONG Media/A-indie
BELONG Media is an indie music media outlet that started in 2012. We cover indie music from around the world, including Japan and overseas. In 2021, we appeared as a guest on J-WAVE’s “SONAR MUSIC.” In 2022, we launched “A-indie,” an English-language sister site focusing on Asian music.
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