Grimes‘ upcoming album, Miss Anthropocene, is mostly a futuristic look at art and society, but her latest single, “Delete Forever,” offers something different. The stripped-back, acoustic track tackles the tragedies of the opioid epidemic, and was partly inspired by the accidental overdose death of rapper Lil Peep.
In an interview with Zane Lowe, Grimes explained that she wrote the track the night of Peep’s death:
It’s a pretty bummer song. I guess it’s kind of about the opioid epidemic. I’ve had quite a few friends pass away, in particular, one friend when I was 18 passed away from complications related to opioid addiction. Artists keep dying and stuff so I wrote this song on the night Lil Peep died because I just got super triggered. Lil Peep and Juice WRLD were both artists I really liked. The artists its happening to specifically feels… a little too on the nose. I think [they were] people who in my opinion were best expressing issues of mental health. So to have them die specifically just feels like a weird hopelessness.
Grimes noted that while the translation of pain into art can be cathartic, it also takes its toll on an artist’s psyche.
“I think when you’re meant to perform pain for other people’s benefit, that’s when shit starts getting really trick,” she said. “People expect you to be this level 10 chaos all the time. It’s really hard to maintain level 10 chaos for people. I think it’s why a lot of artists spiral out of control.”
On the track, she references dealing with pain through drugs:
Lying so awake, things I can’t escape
Lately, I just turn ‘em into demons
Float into the sun, fucking heroin
Lately I just turn 'em into reasons
The track’s acoustic sound stands in stark contrast to recent singles like “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth” or “My Name is Dark.” She told Zane Lowe that most of the instrumentals are from her original demo.
“When I was making this song I was trying to be more like Patsy Cline or something, like I was trying to be country or something, but I feel like it ends up having this ‘Wonderwall’ sort of vibe,“ she said.
Miss Anthropocene is set to drop next Friday, February 21.
Listen to the song above and read all the lyrics to Grimes' “Delete Forever” on Genius now.
