Song of the Week: Flip Phone

If you've managed to bag a copy of the deluxe edition of Soul Boy IV by now, surely you're already very familiar with the song Flip Phone. This track is so light-hearted and playful that it's impossible to not like.

Maybe I'm taking things too literally here, but this song always reminds me of one of my favorite flip phones that I had many years ago. It was a silver Motorola Razr with a white dragon wrapping around the case. It had all the functionality of a ham sandwich, but man did it look cool. And the satisfaction you got from snapping it closed on someone that was pissing you off was next level. Those were the days!

In lieu of having actual lyrics to go by for this one, I'm just going to do the best that I can. And that's questionable on a good day, so I apologize in advance for thinking that Zac is singing about "ketamine and ringtones," but once you've heard that it's very difficult to unhear it. Admittedly, Jackie was right about the way things sound better or worse coming from different sound sources. I can hear some parts of this song a lot more clearly now on my laptop than I have been able to in the past with the cheap headphones I buy (because they have a tendency to fall into lakes).

Needless to say, Flip Phone is another song that has a couple of spots where I can't quite make out the lyrics. I am a firm believer in the saying that "a closed mouth gathers no feet," so I'm just going to leave all of that alone with the understanding that 'ketamine' is probably the least concerning thing that I definitely misheard here.

I'll tell you though, as much as I enjoy writing these articles, you don't realize how much you don't know until you're sitting in front of a blank screen with a flashing cursor taunting you with every blink. And then add to that a pile of misheard lyrics muddying up the space inside your head... suddenly you can't remember if you've ever even heard this song you've listened to a million times before! And I trust gas station sushi more than the transcripts on YouTube, so that is of little help as well. I will never understand how YouTube can get so many obvious lyrics completely wrong, but the quiet parts in the background saying, “Someone call my phone- Where the fuck is it?” it picks up perfectly fine. Technology, man.

Life's just a fuckin' bitch then you die

(Phew! For a moment I thought I was the only one who felt that way.) Of course, I also have being an American working against me, so even when I do understand what the lyrics are saying that's no guarantee that I'm going to understand the message behind them.

For instance, I had no idea what Jack Jones was. This was one of those situations where you're secretly very confused, but you just kind of go along with it and smile to be polite... Anyway, you can imagine my surprise when, many months later, I found myself lost in some random shopping mall in Galway, Ireland (where you have to pay to use the toilets and they hide all the coffee shops until you cry for some reason) and the next thing I knew I was standing outside of a Jack Jones! All at once the light bulb in my head clicked on– I stopped my friends dead in their tracks by exclaiming "Wait a Goddamn minute!" while grabbing one of them by their arm, and then proceeded to ramble on about flip phones for a solid five minutes as they struggled helplessly to get away from me.

And the kicker? I still have no idea if that's the Jack Jones the song is referring to or not. I am fully aware that there is also a famous singer by that name, but if that's the case, Zac would likely need more than a flip phone to talk to him because he died at the end of 2024. Maybe there's a Ouiji board app by now, who knows? The point is to never give up on your dreams!

I was going to ask Jackie if I was correct about the Jack Jones reference or if my Galway epiphany was all for naught, but I thought I'd roll the dice on this one—I'll have either made a brilliant real world observation that will thoroughly impress you, or I'll be hilariously wrong. Either way, I will not be disappointed, so feel free to let me know.

Jack Jones aside, Flip Phone was another in a long line of superb collaboration choices. This song was my first introduction to Pozzy, who seems to be gaining some traction himself and working with a fair number of other noteworthy artists. Of course, one of which being Hen$haw, who you will remember from the other popular Skinner Brothers collaboration, Mark of the Beast. Hen$haw is featured on the track Been Around from Pozzy's latest album, It's All Up in the Air, released in December of 2025.

Pozzy doesn't seem to be a stranger to putting in a lot of hard work for his age either, as evident by one of his most popular releases, Might Go Out, which has racked up 21K views in seven months. His spoken-word delivery has a way of keeping you locked in, keeping your mind focused on the message of the lyrics by blending his vocals seamlessly with the music instead of allowing you to get distracted by it. Whether or not Pozzy will do another collaboration with the Skinner Brothers in the future remains to be seen, but he bears watching either way. And now that we have him on our radar, this will certainly not be the last we see or hear from him!

'Cuz you know they're gonna hate you when you're on the right track

This is probably one of the most prophetic lyrics in any Skinner Brothers song to date, second only to the line “mask on my face when I reach my peak” from the aforementioned Mark of the Beast. For some reason, there's something about creating art and attempting to release it into the world for everyone to enjoy that really brings out the worst in people. The only thing they seem to resent more than your failure is your success– they'll happily pretend to support you when you're down on your luck, but the moment you start making any progress they will try to get inside your head and do anything in their power to keep you there.

Maybe the success of others makes them feel inadequate about their own shortcomings? Or perhaps they are just giant, somewhat-sentient bags of douche, whose mouths work at a significantly faster rate than their brains. Who knows, but if ever there was a surefire sign that you're doing something right, it's when everyone else around you tells you that you should just give up.

Take a cold shower, mix it with a pill and no sleep

This line, on the other hand, is not one that I imagine will go down in the longstanding history of good advice. Sure, it sounds great in the context of a song, but do you know what happens when you actually try something like that in real life?

Enough said.

☘️🖤