Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” is a vibrant synth and drum-machined romp that’s consistently made people in clubs feel empowered (yet also feel a sense of surprising emotional nuance?). But it’s undeniable that it was always lacking in butter tubs. From the second it started dropping in clubs around the world, ecstatic dancers had to contend with the fact that, while the song was catchy and electrifying and quirky-dance-inducing, it also bore a gaping lack of containers used to hold congealed dairy products in its instrumentation. Emma Stone and Maya Rudolph have come to the rescue — but you might recall that they’re certainly not the first.
In 2011, the Swedish group Erato filmed themselves performing the song a cappella, with the members harmonizing and doing hand-acrobatics with butter tubs against a table. (Does it count as a cappella though if butter tubs are used as percussion?) It went viral, as such virtuosic butter tubbing should.
And on the finale episode of Rudolph and Martin Short’s variety show Maya and Marty, Stone joined Rudolph to do their own rendition…of the butter tub rendition of “Call Your Girlfriend.” It’s folky, lovely, and buttery.
Watch:
Here’s the original butter tub version:
And of course, the original-original version: