Halsey writes songs that could easily be anyone's anthem. Her tracks are mainly about love and relationships, but she has also created some powerful songs about her personal experiences.
I invite you to understand in this article the message behind Graveyard and how it relates to Halsey's life.
A tight hug
I recorded a cover of Graveyard in October 2019, a few weeks after its release. The song hadn't captivated me at first listen, but as I began to understand the sound elements and the reasons behind the lyrics, I identified with it.
Every time I hear it, it comes to me like a tight hug. That's why I decided to share a little about what I learned from this song and do an analysis of it.
The narrative of illusion and chaos
I first heard Halsey when she released New Americana, in 2015. At the time, I liked how sweet and wild at the same time the song sounded and I started following her career from afar. After songs like Colors, Without Me, Sorry It is Nightmare, that don't leave my playlists, she came with Graveyard, the first official single from her third studio album, Manic (remembering that Nightmare will not be on the album, and Clementine was only released later – it only got a music video before Graveyard).
Graveyard presented us with a Halsey who seeks to deal with the illusion of chaos and heal herself. It's a song about becoming aware of reality and letting someone go out of self-love and how that can be a struggle. Halsey sings about how she was always trying to find herself in the wrong places and with the wrong people, and about how she finally realized that her mind is hers and that she can do whatever she wants with it.
In the singer's own words:
“The song is about loving someone who's in a bad place, and because you love them so much, you don't realize that you're getting into a bad place with them... It's also about learning to care for yourself enough to not follow them until there."
Free translation of Halsey's speech, in interview with Billboard.
This isn't the first time Halsey has addressed this subject in her songs. In the music video for Without Me, she already presents us with the melancholic narrative of letting someone go so as not to go off the deep end with them:
The present looks to the past
The most interesting in Graveyard and in Halsey's stance, you can see how she is not just telling us about her pain, but continually acting to reorganize her own feelings and thoughts. This is what we all do (or should be doing for our own good) when we understand that something hurts us. And looking at what we have accumulated on our journey and bring in our luggage is one of the ways to put our head back in its right place.
“My mother told me a story a long time ago. She told me: 'Don't fall in love with a person who gives you butterflies in your stomach. If you feel nervous when you're around her, that's a bad sign. Fall in love with a person who makes you feel safe, calm. Because if your heart jumps out of your chest every time you get a little affection or love from her, it means she's tying you down. This is not a person to be with. Be the person who makes you feel safe.'”
Free translation of Halsey's speech, during a performance of Graveyard at the Grammy Museum.
Among so many things, music is also that. It's looking at your experiences, at what you know, and finding your way. It's a beautiful and tragic form of self-knowledge, whether it's about your most ardent passions or whatever subject leads you to that state.
The music videos
Talking about Halsey's music videos always gets me excited. She usually goes deep into this issue and likes to work on the drama in a very present way. In Graveyard, she continued to enchant us with a succession of works.
Before talking about the official music video, I want to talk about the time-lapse with which Halsey released the song for the first time:
This is a video about growing up, building yourself, in line with the construction of Halsey's own image in the painting she makes. It's as if knowing who you are depends only on yourself. And for me, this video strongly shows what the Manic, despite having a conceptual relationship with Graveyard.
After the video time-lapse, Halsey released the vertical music video for the song on Spotify, in partnership with the South Korean artist Dain Yoon. The concept is the same: painting, construction and the symbolism of maturity – in this case, flowers already in bloom.
After addressing the original concept of the album and his current moment of self-knowledge in time-lapse and in the vertical video clip of Graveyard, Halsey finally visually brought the idea for the song to fruition in her official music video. In it, we see her drawing a person who doesn't exist and intensely living this illusion in an amusement park, as in a perfect dream:
In the music video, the illusion disappears, and after a literal cold shower, Halsey's world becomes apathetic, colorless. Here, the metaphor of a person in love is clear, who cannot see the flaws of the person on their side – no matter how terrible they are – until disappointment hits them in the chest and they have to deal with reality.
I really liked this work because it differs from the approach taken in Without Me, by conceptually focusing on the illusion rather than telling a more literal story, since Graveyard There is a depth of innocence in the song itself (I feel it in the chorus, in the higher notes) and the music video talks a lot about this.
There may be more interpretations of these works, this was just my view after watching them a few times. If you've had any other views of the music videos of Graveyard, just leave it in the comments, I’ll love reading and debating about it!
The other face of Graveyard
If everything you've heard, seen and read so far hasn't made you love Graveyard, I know one thing he's going to do: the acoustic version of the song. Check out:
This video was a surprise, even though we know that Halsey usually makes new versions of some of her songs. singles as a stage of dissemination.
The blank sheet
Growing up is one of the most beautiful things in life, and making your work accompany that growth is equally beautiful. Graveyard It is not just a voice that screams about suffering for love and letting go, but a song of welcome to all those who seek to find themselves and identify with something after a disappointment.
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