If you didn’t like the music video, chances are this live performance isn’t gonna do it for you either.
Jessie Murph just released her sophomore album Sex Hysteria, which, as the title suggests, has some pretty explicit themes in some of the songs. Jessie is just 20-years old, and the Alabama-born singer first grabbed attention with her breakout track “Blue Strips,” and of course her “High Road” duet with Koe Wetzel.
And the controversy I’m referring to comes from the aforementioned music video for her song “1965,” which had fans pretty disturbed because of how graphic it is. The video starts off simple enough: retro filter, big hair, white dress, grainy camera footage. It feels campy, like a Pinterest wedding meets ’60s fever dream. Then it shifts. I’d embed it, but let’s just say it goes beyond your standard NSFW warning label.
We see Jessie dancing in front of her supposed husband and his family, looking calm, detached even. Then he walks off with another woman, and Jessie just sits there smoking a cigarette. No emotion. No reaction. Nothing.
But it’s the 1:30 mark where things go from strange to straight-up uncomfortable. Jessie stands there and watches as her husband cheats on her… right there, onscreen. It’s graphic, not in a TV-MA way necessarily, but enough to make most people stop the video and say, “What the hell am I watching?”
Of course people flooded the comments section with their concern, and many wanted Youtube to remove it. The video is still up right now, and over on TikTok, though, people have been much more critical over the opening verse which is… something:
“I might get a little slap slap
But you wouldn’t hit me on snapchat
Don’t f****** text me at 2am saying where you at at
Boy f*** you”
It’s being called out for normalizing domestic violence in a throwaway line and trying to pass it off as some kind of edgy Gen Z anthem. People aren’t just mad. It genuinely made a lot of listeners uncomfortable.
As backlash grew, Jessie responded, claiming the whole thing was satire:
@jessiemurphhh♬ 1965 – J E S S I E M U R P H
But people didn’t seem to like her live performance of it much better during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon yesterday, which was obviously not as graphic as the music video, but didn’t exactly resonate in the much more PG form, either.
She’s fully clothed, singing by herself, with just a singular ballet dancer in the background:
Jessie Murph performs “1965” on ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.’ pic.twitter.com/gZlN5fJrR7
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 22, 2025
In the replies to the above X post from Pop Crave, fans didn’t seem too impressed with the artistic angle and concept in general of this song and performance:
What is he doing back there lol this song does not call for all this
— 🔮 CULTURAL WEATHER VANE 🔮 (@tallyohhh) July 23, 2025
it’s giving lana from temu
— ⋆ ᵀᴬᴱ ⋆ (@hard_tingz) July 23, 2025
genuinely one of the worst voices in music of our time what is going ON
— josh paytonn (@iluvoutsellingu) July 22, 2025
I don’t care if this is meant to be ironic or satirical or whatever, I absolutely hate it
— 🫧ʜᴏᴘᴇ (@carterhopesarah) July 23, 2025
We have Amy Winehouse at home
— Tweety (@darieljp) July 23, 2025
Like 1965? When women couldn’t have credit cards?? No thanks.
— Elise she/they (@mystateofgrace8) July 23, 2025
very questionable performance
— ♡Liv (@_syntia) July 23, 2025
This concept is so played. Any Whinehouse, Megan Trainor and Lana del Rey have this on lock. Idk wtf this is
— The Visual (@the_visual1133) July 23, 2025
oh she’s awful
— lil old me (@gaysaffelstein) July 23, 2025
I can’t believe this isn’t an SNL skit
— ᴊᴀᴄᴋ | The Fashion Joker 🃏 (@JackDMurphy) July 23, 2025
But over in the YouTube comments, people were much nicer, surprisingly, but I am stunned that the official music video is still up because it really does cross a line and I will be even more shocked if they don’t re-upload an edited version or take it down altogether sooner rather than later.
At this point, though, the damage is done, so to speak, and I can’t unsee it… but I wish I could.
I think Murph has a lot of potential, even though her music really isn’t for me, and she’s obviously very young, but this was a miss and hopefully something she can learn from going forward. But if her goal was to get people talking, she certainly accomplished it, even if it’s not overwhelmingly positive, to say the least.
You can watch the Fallon performance here:
