“Novacane,“ the lead single from Frank Ocean’s debut mixtape nostalgia,ULTRA., describes what it’s like to have sex while on drugs, and it details the relationship between Ocean and a girl in dental school who also does porn to subsidize her tuition.

The song’s title is a play on Novocain—a numbing drug primarily used by dentists when performing painful procedures like cavity fillings or root canals. The intentionally incorrect spelling of Novocain points to the theme of drug use. A “nova” is a star “that suddenly increases its light output and then fades away to its former obscurity.” Like a nova, Frank Ocean experiences fleeting highs before eventually coming down.