Wednesday, Dec 1, 2021 • 17min
Halsey - You Asked for This
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Halsey is an award-winning singer and songwriter from New Jersey. She's been nominated for two Grammys, and sold over a million records. In August, she released her fourth album, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, which was produced by the Grammy and Oscar winning duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross from Nine Inch Nails. Halsey wrote one of the songs on the album, "You Asked for This," with Greg Kurstin, who’s won 8 Grammys himself, including Producer of the Year. In this episode, Halsey tells the story of making this song while pregnant with her son, and how that shaped the lyrics and the music.
For more, visit songexploder.net/halsey https://songexploder.net/halsey
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Halsey
Hrishikesh Hirway
Transcript
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Hrishikesh Hirway
00:00
You're listening to
Song Exploder
where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. My name is Hrishikesh Hirway
.Share
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Hrishikesh Hirway
01:17
Halsey
is an award-winning singer and songwriter from New Jersey
. She's been nominated for two Grammys,
and she sold over a million records in August. She released her 4th album, "If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power", which was produced by the Grammy
and Oscar
winning duo Trent Reznor
and Atticus Ross
from Nine Inch Nails
. Halsey
wrote one of the songs on the album, "You Asked For This" with Greg Kurstin
, who's won eight Grammys
himself, including producer of the year.Share
01:44
In this episode,
Halsey
tells the story of making this song while pregnant with their son and how that shaped the lyrics and the music.Share
Halsey
02:09
I'm
Halsey
. When I first started, "You Asked For This", I was 26, and I was pregnant, and I didn't have many peers in the industry who are having kids as young as me. So, I was kind of having this full existential crisis of like, what is my life going to be? Do I have to give up everything that I love? Do I have to give up the parts of me that I think make me the best artist that I am? I was working with Greg Kurstin
, who's experienced and seasoned and knows how to get right to the guts of what makes a really good song.Share
02:44
I'm in his home, his kids doing homework at the kitchen table, you know, in the room outside the studio, and he has, like, a really wonderful relationship with his wife, he's a great dad and his daughter is riding a scooter around in the front yard, and it's like a completely different world.
Share
02:58
So it really taps into this duality for me, which is me still as like, you know, someone who's kind of spontaneous and maybe sometimes irresponsible and like a little bit more lawless, and then the version of me who's like, tender and mature and compassionate and wants to hang out with somebody's kids and this kind of flip-flop is happening in the midst of me being pregnant, trying to figure out who am I going to be on the other side of this, which one do I have to pick?
Share
03:27
So, I walked into the studio in
Hawaii
and I looked at Greg
, who's a tremendous guitarist, like incredible instrumentalist, and I was like, I want to make something kind of Shoegaze
like My Bloody Valentine.Share
03:47
I wanted this song to feel like I was floating in between two spaces. That feeling when you go to sit down and there's two chairs and like, you don't land on either of them, you kind of fall through the middle. That was the feeling that I was having in this transitional space in my life. And so
Greg
, he kind of just started playing guitar.Share
04:15
The first thing I did, which is what I usually do when I start writing music is I started writing a poem and the ambiance of him playing this guitar, kind of like put this poem into my head. I'm barefoot, and I've been in the sun, and I'm in these like ripped jeans that I can't put because my belly is getting bigger, and I'm sitting on the couch and so, you know, the song opens up with, "I don't know what you want from me, I'm sunburned lips and summer feet. I'm tattered like these Levi jeans punch, wasted on redundancy".
Share
05:03
It was exactly who and how I was in that moment when the first notes of this song kind of came into conception, I let my guard down for a little bit, looked inside and was like, okay, what are you feeling right now? And I started to get kind of emotional because I realized what I was feeling was fear.
Share
05:25
Anyone who had asked me up until that point, you know how I was feeling, I would be like, "oh I'm great, like, you know, I'm so excited to be pregnant, you know, " are you scared about labor? I'm like, "nope, not scared at all". Are you scared about being a mom? "Nope, I was born to do this" and I was just kind of like putting on a brave face and the one thought that keeps coming into my head is "go be a big girl, this is what you asked for, you asked for this".
Share
05:52
There's three voices in the song. There's verse me, which is kind of like whining me. Who's like, am I resigned to still? It's kind of like domesticated complacency. You wished upon a falling star and then left behind the avant-garde, for lemonade in crystal glasses, picket fences, file taxes.
Share
06:20
And then there's a critical voice in the chorus that's kind of like, "well shut up and be a big girl, you asked for this, like we're going to do it, we're gonna be fine, you don't really have a choice anymore". I don't know, I just kind of started, like, bullying myself and I just could hear that voice in my head over and over and over again.
Share
06:40
But the delivery of that chorus the first time I did, it didn't feel right, and it was because my delivery was too weak, it didn't have enough authority, and I was like, I need to put some chest into this. Go on and be a big girl, you asked for this now, go on and be a big girl, or everybody's gonna drown you out, go on and be a big girl, you asked for this now, you better show 'em why you talk so loud.
Share
07:21
I was experimenting with the type of vocal delivery that I've never really experimented with before, and it was kind of motivated by that, like,
Gwen Stefani
, No Doubt
like super nasally that, you know, "go on and be a big girl", that sort of voice.Share
07:39
Gwen Stefani
really nails that she was obviously like an instrumental part of my development as an artist, and it was really cool to like, throw that in there because for a song that's about my inner child and my future as a mother, it was cool to tap into someone who was like there for me as an artist when I was a child and when I was like, kind of coming of age. Go on and be a big girl, you asked for this now, you better show 'em why you talk so loud.Share
08:13
And as soon as I tried it,
Greg
and I both looked at each other, and we were like that's it. Like that is the voice. There's this amazing thing happens when I write with Greg
, which is that we don't really talk all that much.Share
08:24
There's always this knowing look that he gives me, you know, which is like that, he sees me and he sees what I'm going through, but like he kind of just listens and he just lets me get it out and the only way that I know how to and then when it's over, we look at each other and we're kind of like this is good, yeah.
Share
08:44
So
Nine Inch Nails
was my favorite band for most of my adolescence, and most of my early work is me just kind of poorly plagiarizing them in like a sugarcoated way. So it was my greatest dream to make a record with them.Share
09:01
When
Trent
and Atticus
got their hands on these songs, they took them apart with the exception of you asked for this. That was the one where we really stuck to the original mentality, and once we started working on. "You asked for this", like it became immediately clear to me that they were on board with making this song really fuzzy and really textured.Share
09:34
Trent
and Atticus
. They really helped me create that authentic like My Bloody Valentine, you know, sound. And so there are 33 guitars on, "you asked for this", I don't think I've ever had that many guitars on the song before.Share
10:04
Oh my God. All of those guitars are supposed to kind of create a sense of anxiety that tells the listener, "I'm having so many feelings at once, and now you are too". And then there's a third voice that enters that's kind of like my ego which is like, I want my cake on a silver platter, I want a fistful in my hands.
Share
10:36
And then, you know, that voice turns kind of a carnal and animalistic and sexual. She's like, I want a fist around my throat, I wanna cry so hard, I choke, I want everything that I asked for.
Share
10:52
So it's kind of this voice that kind of becomes like stern and almost like malevolent. That's like, you know, you're going to be a mom, and you're going to have sex, and you're going to cut your hair and get tattoos, and you're going to feed your baby and go for walks. But you're also gonna wear leather and latex and do whatever you want because you can, you can do everything. You can have everything.
Share
11:15
There's this moment of kind of freedom at the end where I'm like, "well, why can't I, why can't I have both? "
Share
11:53
When I got pregnant, I was like, what am I as an artist? If not, you know, sexy and young and kind of this like manic pixie spontaneous thing. Can you be a great wholesome, amazing mom and also a sexually independent, self actualized individual? There is like a constant battle between having your autonomy and your independence. And also being a great parent to this tiny little thing that depends on you entirely.
Share
12:31
Underneath all that I found the root of my fear which was that you know for as much as I feel like a really well-rounded and worldly woman on the outside, there's a little girl still inside of me who's like, "I don't know if I know how to be somebody's mom" and what ended up happening was like none of that mattered.
Share
12:56
I can articulate that he's the greatest thing that's ever happened and all of the chaos, all of the dust settled, and you know, I was exactly where I wanted to be. So it's tongue in cheek in the beginning. Well you asked for this, and then you know by the end it's more tender and cathartic, and it's well I asked for this, and then I got it
Share
Hrishikesh Hirway
13:26
And now here's "You Asked For This" by
Halsey
in its entirety.Share
Speaker 2
13:31
Mm hmm.
Share
Speaker 4
14:35
And starring crystal glasses, picket fences, file taxes.
Share
16:21
Oh my I want to cry.
Share
16:40
Mhm, mm hmm.
Share
16:50
Yeah.
Share
16:52
Mm hmm.
Share
16:56
Yeah.
Share
16:59
Mhm.
Share
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Hrishikesh Hirway
Halsey