Player of Games

Player of Games is a single by Grimes. It was released as the first single for her sixth album, Book 1.
== Background ==
On July 22, 2021, Grimes first previewed a teaser of the track via TikTok alongside the caption:https://www.tiktok.com/@grimes/video/6987682636051287301/
This came two days after sharing a snippet of 100% Tragedy with a video from the same shoot, and one month after sharing a snippet from Shinigami Eyes.
On July 25, Grimes aired the song again as a part of a Discord DJ set.https://youtu.be/LyuO73fWzzU?t=2123
On November 17, the track fully debuted as the theme song for season 5 of the vehicular sports video game Rocket League.https://www.rocketleague.com/news/rocket-league-goes-cosmic-in-season-5/
On November 29, Grimes tweeted "Player of Games" in Binary Code, with a release date of December 3rd.https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/1465421681204285447
=== Meaning ===
The song is about Elon Musk, and his plans to go to Mars, as presented in this Vanity Fair interview:
A week later, shortly before midnight on a Friday, Grimes calls from Musk’s Tesla and puts them on speakerphone. It’s date night. They’ve got a sitter for X and Y, and they’re going to the movies—an early cut of dailies by a director friend. We’ve got 12 minutes to talk. Musk is in the driver’s seat letting the car do the driving, and Grimes is refreshing his memory about the chorus to "Player of Games," which dropped in December and is more or less about him: "If I loved him any less I’d make him stay / but he has to be the best Player of Games."
"I wouldn’t say I have to be the best Player of Games," Musk says. He thinks the guy in the song sounds "somewhat overwrought." Grimes concedes a bit of dramatic license, but "it rhymes well." He does like strategy games an awful lot, though, and she asks for permission to share that he has the top score on a popular civilization-building game called The Battle of Polytopia, which Musk describes as a "much more complex version of chess." He’s even bested Polytopia’s creator, Felix Ekenstam. "I literally beat him at his own game," Musk says. (He’s also lost a bunch to Ekenstam too.)
[..]
When "Player of Games" first dropped, Grimes’s fans assumed it was about her rumored split from Musk, when in fact they were welcoming their second child and spending the holidays together as a family. The idea for the song came to her during a conversation with friends two years ago while she was three or four months pregnant with X, when Musk casually mentioned that he planned to depart for Mars in 10 years. She froze.
"I was like, ‘Uhhh….’ " She remembers laughing nervously. "I said, ‘Could we make it 20?’ "
"It wasn’t new information," Musk says in the car, lightly protesting when I bring this up. "I’ve been saying since before she was pregnant that I was going to Mars." Sure, she replies, but "I didn’t know you were going, like, this soon." She is still trying to convince Musk to stick around longer, but either way she came out of it with a killer song for her space opera.
== Media ==
=== Video ===
<tabber>
|-|Teaser=
|-|Lyric Video=
|-|Trailer=
|-|Music Video=
|-|Behind The Scenes=
</tabber>
===Artwork===
Player of Games cover artwork.png|Single artwork
Player of Games earlier artwork.jpeg|Earlier artwork
Player of Games Spotify banner.jpg|Spotify artist's banner
Player of Games YouTube banner.jpg|YouTube artist's banner
Facebook Profile Pictures (03 Dec 2021) 001.jpg|Extended single artwork (horizontally)
Player of Games single artwork (dragon).png|Dragon logo (png)
Grimes_Player_Of_Games_Promotional_Artwork.jpg|Promotional artwork
Grimes_Player_Of_Games_Promotional_Artwork2.jpg|Promotional artwork by Rahi Jayhttps://www.instagram.com/p/CWRc-KkphOe/?img_index=1 He "(..) made a Cyber Grimes piece using one of her pictures!"
Player of Games logo.png|White Player of Games logo (png)
Player of Games single artwork (extended).jpg|Extended single artwork (featured on her website)
Player of Games design 001.jpg
Player of Games design 002.jpg
Player of Games design 003.jpg
Player of Games design 004.jpg
== Lyrics ==
<tabber>
|-|Single=
|-|Demo=
</tabber>
== Trivia ==
*The title of the song is a copy of the book's name The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks.https://youtu.be/KOwm7GUjcg8?si=cTAwbIdcStsUhAjp&t=1621
*It is the first chapter of Book 1.https://youtu.be/ADHFwabVJec?si=YvwzvZVt7CS7143f&t=29
==Versions==
▶ Standard - 4:05
▶ Music Video - 4:37
▶ Rocket League - 1:56
▶ Trailer - 0:35
Demos 
▶ Original Version - 3:11
 
== References ==
Category:Songs
Category:Singles
Category:Music videos
Category:2021