Over one billion plays on Spotify. That’s how popular Portugal. The Man’s song “Feel It Still” was — it reached number one on Top 40 radio, number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the most Shazamed song in the country for seven weeks straight.

Prior to “Feel It Still”, the band had released 7 albums by 2014, enjoying a steady presence on the alternative charts, but they had never seen one of their songs reach these levels of mainstream success. “Feel It Still”, and its corresponding album Woodstock, was released June 16, 2017, three years after their previous album Evil Friends.

In the almost five years since “Feel It Still'' was dominating the radio, the band has been busy collaborating with other artists (such as Weird Al and Cherry Glazerr) and dropping covers of songs by Metallica, the Scorpions, Len, and Eden. However, the band has been quiet on the new music front for longer now than their break between Evil Friends and Woodstock.

That changed five weeks ago. Portugal. The Man returned from their hiatus with the release of their new single, “What, Me Worry?”, as a “doorway into our record,” the band proclaimed on Instagram. The song is an upbeat, psychedelic pop-rock jam, produced by pop powerhouses Jeff Bhasker and Ryan Tedder. The song is a tantalizing taste of what to expect from their ninth album, set to drop in June.

The song features their signature falsetto vocal hooks and thick and plucky bass-lines, along with synthesized strings, a subtle brass section, energetic drum fills, and what sounds like a maraca or an egg shaker in the background. Elements of funk, disco, psychedelic rock, and ‘80s pop are present in this tune that’s got the same ear-worm quality as “Feel It Still”. The song opens with a dark, edgy opening — a distorted guitar lick overlaid with a voiceover laughing, remarking, “y’all remember when we were kids? What!”. It then abruptly transitions into a psychedelic pop rock kind of feel, almost mirroring the juxtaposition between the reality of being adults with the idealized memory of childhood.

Singer and frontman John Gourley discussed the inspiration behind “What, Me Worry?” in a statement:

“While recording this album and hanging in LA, we got into a conversation with Jeff Bhasker and Ryan Tedder about how much we missed laughter. The last few years it’s been so easy to forget the fun in what we do. We talked about childhood memories of laughing at the world and ourselves while flipping through Mad Magazine. We missed those days and remembered that we all make music. So we took that afternoon to make a song about it.”

(Mad Magazine, an American humor magazine, had a fictitious mascot and cover boy named Alfred E. Neuman, whose motto was famously “what, me worry?”. In late 1959, Mad released a 45 rpm single entitled "What – Me Worry?" (ABC-Paramount 10013), by "Alfred E. Neuman and His Furshlugginer Five", featuring an uncredited voice actor singing as Neuman.)

The song’s inspiration is wholesome and fun, but there’s a sense of loss there too; we can never really go back to those days. That darkness seeps through in the lyrics: “Happy as a clown/ What, me worry? / Houses burning down/ Don’t disturb me,” sings Gourley. In the music video, the group is partying in a living room engulfed in flames as a riot erupts, but Gourley assures us, “I ain’t even trippin.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, people are hopeful the end is in sight, what with vaccinations, boosters, antiviral medicines, and rapid self-tests being readily available. But while we hope we are at the beginning of the end, we know we’ve still got a ways to go. “What, Me Worry?” captures the forced hopefulness in light of apocalyptic anxiety — the house has been burning down for over 2 years, but we’re still here. We’re still laughing, still smiling, and still keeping our eyes on the horizon. We’ve learned to laugh in the face of anxiety-inducing events and keep ourselves from getting bogged down with fear and paranoia. “What, Me Worry?” may very well be the anthem of the summer as the world muddles its way through whatever lies in store.