My phone has been weaponized before, and not by me, which is genuinely surprising if you know me. Some guy got my number at a rooftop party in June because I was two drinks in and he seemed completely harmless and I was certain I’d never hear from him again. Three texts before I made it home. Seven by Sunday morning. I left every single one on read and that, somehow, made things worse for him. His messages got longer and I got more comfortable in the silence. I won’t pretend that didn’t feel good. There’s something quietly intoxicating about realizing you’re living rent free in someone’s head while you’re completely unbothered eating pad thai in bed and not thinking about him once. That is the whole energy of Dollhaus’s “One Missed Call,” and I felt that shit immediately.
Dollhaus is a brand new LGBTQ electronic pop duo out of Canada and this is their debut single. The cyberpunk aesthetic they’ve built is doing its goddamn job. Hyperpop production that sounds electric and a little unsettling which works perfectly for a song about someone who cannot read a room. They dig into gender and sexuality through their music, and “One Missed Call” makes all of that feel fun as hell while still carrying something sharp underneath.
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The song opens right where the feeling lives. “I think I met you on a Friday night / Or was it Saturday, now that feels right / I can’t remember but it changed your life / And now I can’t get you off my line.” She cannot remember which night they met. He, presumably, has it memorized and probably marked in a journal. That asymmetry is ruthless and she is aware of every inch of it. The production catches you immediately, frenetic and buzzy with hyperpop edges and digital glitch energy that makes the whole thing feel like a notification spiral you can’t shut off.
The pre-chorus is where she draws the line and makes it permanent. “Playing telephone / Way you get me wrong / Won’t go leading on / I don’t wanna be your one / Think it’s time to go / Time to cut the cord / No use hanging on / This was never my intent / I just wanted to be friends.” She didn’t sign up for whatever the hell he decided this was. She wanted to be friends and he built an entire fantasy around that she never agreed to. The cord-cutting line sounds almost gentle until you realize she means every word of it.
Then the chorus comes in and it’s razor sharp. “One missed call / You got my number now you want it all / I must be crawling up inside your walls / I know I left you on read / There’s nothing left to be said / Now here we go again with / One missed call.” “Crawling up inside your walls” is genuinely unsettling imagery and she plays it so cool you almost miss the point. She’s watching his spiral the way you’d watch weather, mildly interesting and not her fucking problem.
The second verse is where the whole song turns over and shows you what’s underneath. “You must have fallen and hit something upside your head / To think I want anything from you / I’ll just leave you on read / Couldn’t care less if you never called again / Did you ask your wife if you could have a girlfriend?” He’s married. The whole song reframes itself in one line. He isn’t just misreading a vibe, he’s out here pursuing her while he has a wife at home, and if there’s a more accurate definition of audacity I haven’t come across it. That last question is devastating and Dollhaus delivers it so pleasantly you almost miss how much damage it’s doing.
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The second pre-chorus brings the full weight of it. “Running through my mind / Just how many times / You ruined my life / When I was with the right guy / Left another dumb / Message on my phone / What is going on? / What is wrong with you my friend? / I just want these calls to end.” He wasn’t just a problem after the fact. He was there when they had someone they actually wanted and he made things worse then too. The inventory is real and the numbers are bad for him. “What is wrong with you my friend” is the moment that got me because of how exhausted it sounds. She’s past furious and into bone tired, and Dollhaus lets you hear every bit of that exhaustion.
The outro closes the loop and earns it. “Yeah, he’s creeping all the time / Hanging on the line / Yeah, he’s creeping all the time / Always hanging on the line.” It circles back on itself because the situation circles back on itself. He keeps calling. She keeps not answering. The loop is his ass consequence to carry and she is done thinking about it.
The guy from the rooftop eventually stopped showing up in my notifications. I don’t know when. At some point I stopped checking and he was just gone, which is the only ending that was ever going to work for that situation. Dollhaus wrote “One Missed Call” for every woman who’s had someone mistake a shared night for an open invitation, and they made the whole damn thing sound like winning. He’s hanging on the line somewhere. I’m not picking up.
