This is a sad story with almost a contrasting vibe musically, and how it’s told is the highlight. We have a concept we’re all familiar with, heartbroken girl going out for a night on the town to try to escape from the pain with all kinds of self destructive behaviour. The beat goes hard to complement that, but the lyrics are hard hitting.
In the first half of the first verse, she tells us about her drinking and being on the hunt for sex, there’s touches of numbness in her voice. , The second half, there’s sadness in her voice when she says, “a little context if you care to listen”. The sadness remains with her description of events, then you can hear her fighting to switch it off in the last few lines of the verse. She’s more numb in the prechorus, and we get more insight into how fucked up she’s becoming adding drugs to the mix. The chorus takes us into the agony of her brokenness, her desperation to feel nothing. You can hear the pain in her vocals, and the beat drops down for the chorus to make sure we feel that.
The second verse details more of her reckless behaviour. I like these two lines, because crazy shit like this can definitely come out of someone’s mouth when they’re too messed up to care about anything or anyone. They’re also clever and funny.
“Excuse my state, I’m as high as your hopes that you’ll make it to my bed, get me hot and sizzlin'”
And:
“I’m already acting like a dick, know what I mean? So you might as well stick it in”
The bridge utilizes vocal effects to give extra impact to this part of the story. 070 Shake comes in here, and to me it almost feels like she’s a voice in Raye’s head. You know, that really apathetic part of her conscience. To me, the heavy processing gives a robotic like quality which accentuates that emotionless vibe. Yet that voice is trying to help her make peace with all that’s happened, and reminding her that she’ll never truly escape by running.
Then, the beat comes in hard and a little distorted for a final chorus, before dropping back down again to let us know it’s not over yet. Now it feels like her world is in slow motion as the pitch shifted vocals hit us with more calls to not feel how she felt last night. It sounds like thunder and rain in the background too, everything’s foggy and messy. Then after the beat comes back in, it feels like she’s just waking up from passing out hard only to keep going. She’s sort of looking at where she is now and reflecting on everything she did that night, but with no regrets. “I remember nothing so there’s nothing to regret.” Her voice sounds raspy and tired throughout that whole outro, and I totally love that she has that detail in there. It really adds to what she’s conveying at that moment.
We all know that storytelling is a magical part of music. A good production can amplify great lyrics and take us on a journey. We felt everything she went through that night from the beginning to the end. I love getting as much direct insight as possible to someone’s emotional state, and all the motions they’ve gone or are going through. That personally makes me feel more connected. You can really feel how much detail was put into the entire production here to tell the story. It’s not ruled by conventionality or trends and works so well!
Also, this subject matter is very relatable. Many of us have felt that extreme heartbreak, some have walked down a similar road, others who have not can understand how people get there based on feeling that pain. Her lyrics are honest, vulnerable… human. Check it out:
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These are feelings not facts. Opinions aren’t intended to offend. For an in depth description of the intention behind this blog, click here.
