Alphabet Boy

Alphabet Boy

Melanie Martinez

After being stuck on a carousel of a relationship, Cry Baby decides to break things off.

Melanie Martinez told VICE that “Alphabet Boy” is her and Cry Baby’s break-up song:

I wanted to title it “Alphabet Boy,” because he was in college for music and used to try and “teach” me how to write songs as if there was a formula or I wasn’t writing songs correctly. It made me furious and I just wanted to elaborate on that. Me and Jeremy used lots of alliteration in that song for all the verses. We wanted to go in order of the alphabet.

This was the hardest song for Melanie to write due to the immense lyricism, such as alliteration that presses on the song’s theme of feeling belittled. The lyrics in verses 1 and 2 flow in alphabetical order from A to D.

The story and illustration for this song appears on the 11th page of the Cry Baby storybook, reading:

She cried until she then could see
That he wasn’t even worthy
Of all her love and ABC’s
So she spelt fuck you in 1 2 3