My gym membership has been auto-renewing since 2022 and I have been to that building exactly four times, all of them in January, all of them in the first two weeks before I remembered that I hate being sweaty in public around strangers judging my form. I have the water bottle. I have the sports bra and leggings I bought specifically to feel like someone who has her shit together. I have the Spotify playlist I made called “GET IT GIRL” that I listen to exclusively while lying in bed. The discipline required to actually show up and lift heavy shit on a schedule is something I genuinely cannot fucking access in myself and I’ve made a certain peace with that. What I do have is an entirely different set of physical skills that I practice with considerably more enthusiasm and a much better damn attendance record. M0n0 jay’s ‘L.L.L. (Lift, Lift, Lick It)’ is technically a powerlifting anthem, a glittery neon love letter to gym culture and the joy of moving your body with intention. I heard the lollipop line and immediately understood this was also about something else entirely, something I am actually qualified to discuss, and I have not stopped thinking about it since.
The production on this thing is genuinely unhinged. There’s a xylophone doing something playful and slightly menacing over bass that moves through your hips uninvited. M0n0 jay’s vocals sound like exertion and pleasure at the same time and all of it is moving at a pace that makes standing still feel like a personal failure. It’s sweet and physical and a little feral which is the right sonic backdrop for a song that means two completely different things depending on how dirty your mind is. Mine is pretty fucking filthy so I caught it immediately.
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The song opens with its entire thesis statement delivered with the cheerful confidence of someone who has never once received a complaint. “Lift, lift, lick it / Lift your lollipop / Don’t ever let it drop” – the lift is gym floor, the lick is something else completely. The lollipop is doing extraordinary work here. You lift it, you lick it, you maintain the effort, you do not under any circumstances let it drop. That is both excellent powerlifting advice and a masterclass in a completely different discipline, delivered with maximum commitment and no fucks given.
Then the physical reality of the whole situation arrives. “Energy flows up and low / all between our bodies” – the current moving between two people locked into the same rhythm, the heat of that, the way your whole damn body gets involved whether you planned for it or not. On the gym floor this is the feeling of a heavy lift when everything clicks. In the other context it’s the feeling right before his eyes roll back and he forgets what the hell his name is.
The verse has this gorgeous dreamy quality where she steps into the moment fully. “Hey, it’s me / Out of the lovely fantasy / Breathing to the tempo / Of your dream, a happy melody” – she’s real, she’s here, she’s breathing in time with something that exists somewhere between a dream and his actual body. The breathless vocal delivery here is doing serious work. That’s the sound of exertion at maximum capacity in both contexts and she’s not hiding a goddamn thing.
The sensory detail in this one is what gets me. “So lovely to see you / Sweaty and smooth / None of the bad vibes are here with you” – sweaty and smooth is the physical reality of a body working hard and being worth every damn second of it. She’s not carrying any outside noise into this moment, which is its own kind of discipline. The focus of someone who is very good at what they’re doing and present in it.
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The eye contact is the detail that gets me, and she puts it right there in the bridge. “Look into my eyes, a spark, a playful tease / In this dance we move with ease” – looking up while you work is a power move in both the gym and the bedroom, and the playful tease of it, the total absence of anxiety about what’s happening – that’s the energy of someone who has done this enough times to stop performing effort and just perform. Hell of a thing to put in a pop song.
M0n0 jay is a Stockholm-based competitive powerlifter who decided the gym floor wasn’t a big enough stage and built an entire musical universe on top of it. She runs everything herself, which means every chaotic and glitter-drenched decision you hear belongs entirely to her. ‘L.L.L. (Lift, Lift, Lick It)’ is the lead single from her debut concept EP ‘Secret Selfies,’ and her self-described genre is “powerlifter glitter gym pop,” and it suits her completely. She’s building something around strength and movement and the sheer fucking pleasure of being in a body that knows what it’s doing.
My gym membership renews again in April and I have been genuinely considering canceling it for the last six months. After spending two days with ‘L.L.L.’ I think I’m going to keep it, show up, and approach the whole thing with the same focused enthusiastic energy I bring to my actual areas of expertise. M0n0 jay made powerlifting sound like the best sex of your life and I respect the commitment so much I’m willing to try the weights. The lollipop stays though. I’ve been training for that one my whole adult life and my form is excellent.
