He’s an utterly replaceable presence behind the mic, and he’s simply not good enough to pull off a song like this. Although the lyrics may be bland as newsprint (more on that later), it’s the sort of song that could be elevated by a competent singer with a strong performance, and unfortunately Wallen is neither competent nor strong as a vocalist. He certainly feels something as he traverses the world in his search for liquid amnesia, but it registers more as frustration rather than sadness, making the narrator come across as whiny and not really allowing the audience to share in his feelings or feel any sort of sympathy for them. Wallen manages to sharpen up his technical performance this time around (he handles the rapid-fire sections without much trouble, and while his enunciation is still awful, you can at least tell what he’s saying here), but he’s got all the charm and charisma of a cardboard box.

Of course, changing the singer might be the quicker path to respectability. It’s a complete failure all the way around, and Wallen really needs to make a change in the booth for his next album. In addition, the slightly-faster tempo and slightly-bright instrument tones conflict with the supposedly-sad nature of the writing, making the song feel more like a lukewarm banger than a heartbreak track. Most songs at least add some volume or punch on the chorus to distinguish it from the verses, but here the trap beat is the only delineator, making the whole thing run together in the listener’s mind and eventually making them tune it out completely.

Flip to a figurative analysis, and there’s even less to see: In a word, this mix is monotonous, running through the same basic riffs and chord progressions over and over without ever mixing things up. There isn’t much to this thing in a literal sense: We get an acoustic guitar repeating itself like it’s a GarageBand loop, Grady Smith’s favorite snap track (a leaden trap beat also jumps in for the chorus), an instrument buried so deeply under washed-out effects that it’s hard to tell if it’s an electric guitar or keyboard (the video lists both as present), and that’s basically it. Wallen’s production has never been considered avant-garde (or even sufficient), but the mix we get here feels particularly ill-suited to the task at hand. In other words, it’s yet another dog turd, and the public better have some bibs and oregano handy, because they’ll need it for this flavorless filler. The song is basically a sequel to “Whiskey Glasses,” and it features exactly what you’d expect from a Wallen effort: Predictable, poorly-executed production, a whiny nothingburger of a story, and a typically uninteresting and unsympathetic performance from the man himself. At this point, all Wallen and Big Loud want to do is keep the golden goose laying and the gravy train rolling, and thus they’ve given us “You Proof” as the fifth single from his double album Dangerous.

The Curious Case of Morgan Wallen continues to confuse me: The man is a subpar singer who keeps foisting subpar songs onto the public, and yet the public keeps devouring these dog turds like they’re filet mignon, with the aforementioned “Wasted On You” flying up the charts in just under four months to become his sixth airplay #1. So you were tired of the alcohol being “Wasted On You” literally ten seconds ago, and now you’re looking for something “You Proof” to waste? Make up your darn mind!

Amnesia lyrics mind in a box