The Top 40 radio circulation rarely churns out songs noteworthy enough for a second listen. Yes, there are definitely exceptions; but you rarely get a song that breaks into the mainstream that is capable of making you both dance and literally cry in the club. However, that's exactly what we got in 2018 with the multi-platinum smash, "Without Me" by Halsey.
When I first heard the song, I thought it was a bop, and was a song that was certain to become a radio-banger, but it didn't really strike a chord with me in my soul at first listen. It hit the number-one on Billboard's eponymous Hot 100 list, making it Halsey's first number-one as a solo artist. It was a radio staple: if you, reader, were conscious at all for almost the entirety of 2019 and the end of 2018, the song was inescapable. You couldn't turn on a major radio station without hearing the haunting, ethereal underwater guitar riff that starts off the hit; and for some reason, despite its constant repetition on the airwaves, I never turned it off. I liked the song, but I didn't realize how much I related to it until much later. Maybe my initial reaction and appreciation for "Without Me" didn't come until I saw the music video for the first time in January 2020, despite its being released, also, in 2018.
The music video starts off with Halsey in a bathtub with supercuts of her and a look-a-like of her ex-boyfriend flashing in and out of frame, with the guitar opener slowly playing in the background, muffled. It's clear the music video is depicting an abusive relationship from the get-go, but it's not just the opening that gets you: it's the sheer cinematography of it all. The video brings the song to life: stumbling out of a bar with a boyfriend who clearly can't go out without getting trashed; flowers being watered on the counter, sitting in a can of beer (certainly a metaphor of toxicity) accompanied by the line, "gave love 'bout a hundred tries"; or the two fighting over money for what can only assume are the man's drug problem. The argument ends in verbal and physical abuse and her kissing his forehead telling him, "it's okay", a haunting yet incredibly heartbreakingly true picture of what its like to be on the receiving end of abusive wrath. The music video, upon my first watch, left me on my floor with my laptop on the carpet, wracking with sobs.
I was living this hell.
My relationship never involved drugs, but involved incredible gaslighting of me by way of my partner. I was constantly called names, or uncomfortably leaving bars with him too trashed to walk or fend for himself. I was screamed at on sidewalks for minor infractions like speaking wrong or not reading his mind. I was repeatedly finding myself yelled at or demeaned only to end up being the one, like Halsey, silently mouthing, "it's okay" to my emotionally damaged boyfriend. I was handled roughly, abused verbally, and so psychologically abused, gaslit, and cheated on that I felt like I was watching my own trauma (sans illegal substances) unfold on the screen. My real life hell caused my hair to fall out, me to lose over twenty-pounds, and feel like I was losing my mind. I felt Halsey's pain, I felt her broken heart sitting in the tub, because I was quite literally living out what she, in the end of the video, breaks free of.
The "Without Me" song, and music video, suddenly made sense, and in a way, saved my life. I ended the relationship a little less than two months after the initial listen. I broke free of my chains, and the song suddenly became a new anthem: an anthem for freedom, an anthem for the abused, and an anthem for those who haven't left yet. An anthem for people like me.
The song was snubbed majorly at the 2020 and 2021 Grammys.Her album, 'Manic', which features "Without Me" was left out completely from the 2021 Awards, despite being one of the best-performing singles to come from an album out of all the albums nominated for Record of the Year. Clearly, the Recording Academy know what they're doing far better than I, however, as someone who saw themselves, friends, and other people in the silent majority of abusive or toxic relationships: I was devastated.
I knew what it was like to live through that hell and end up feeling like I had nothing; but I felt for Halsey, because her song became a global smash-hit, a record-breaking hit and a career-defining moment for her. It was a song that was a beacon of her survival of what was a living-hell scenario. The record was a feat in songwriting and bravery I've yet to hear on the Hot 100, and to say I was shocked by the snub would be an understatement. I've never had a smash-hit. I've never hit number-one on a songs chart, but she has, and she did after her abusive relationship: and to me the snub of a nomination felt like a knife through the heart. and the song wasn't and isn't even mine. In an era defined by #MeToo and taking back our lives post trauma, sexual assault and abusive relationships (whatever those may be), I felt as though this song was more important than any other album released at the time, let alone any other song.
"Without Me" deserved better. It deserved more than record-airplay; it deserved more than amazing streams, and it deserved more than the massive recognition it got. It is a testament to everyone who has been through hell and back; a testament of survival; and a testament of bravery in music and songwriting that is rare and all too scarce in an era of music where risks are rarely taken. As a songwriter and musician, "Without Me" was a song that changed the way I write, the way I comprehend and relate to music, and, quite literally...how I live my life. Because of that song I got out of what was slowly killing me, after, interestingly, "giving love about a hundred tries". Halsey surely will make more hits, but I want to be the one to set the record straight: you'll never find another "Without Me" on the Hot 100 that has the impact and drama to change someone's life, and I'm afraid that's a fact. Songs like "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, "Without Me" or even "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac are not songs that come around every year. We don't get albums like 'Manic' or 'Rumors' very often; we don't get records that are a sonic experience in going through a heartbreak like Lorde's wildly slept-on 'Melodrama' or Taylor Swift's 'Red'. No, we don't get the experience to hear that kind of art at the top of the charts anymore, and that's why I'll say, for the one-hundredth time: "Without Me" was a sonic experience that walked the listener through the artist's trauma, while holding the listeners' hand and saying, "it will be okay," and that's why Halsey's masterpiece deserved more. So much more.
