Manic Analysis-"Without Me"

English Teacher KP

Thank you so much for this comment! It sincerely made my day! I am so glad you enjoy my content, and I appreciate you more than you know!

Nikki S

Yessss you’re so right.

Chloe

irrelvant to this song in particular but I joined because of your original halsey analysis of 'the tradition' because 'if I can't have love, I want power' is one of my fave albums of all time but manic holds such a special place in my heart!! I love watching you explore different possibilities and hidden meanings from the lyrics, so I'm glad I found your channel!! You're doing such a good job and thank you for sticking with it, even when things went wrong, we all appreciate the effort you go to!!

Chloe

hahah die for me goes hard, i also think lyrically, maybe not musically for KP, that 'experiment on me has ssuch clever lyrics, particulary from a english teacher perspective

Nikki S

Ooh so a song that is a follow up to this (i know you don’t do requests, just a cute little something to check out on you’re own if you’re interested) after this she went on to write a verse of a rap in the song Die For Me by Post Malone. Her rap in that song is my favorite thing ever 😂 she says “I sold 15 million copies of a breakup note” meaning the song without me. “brought some strangers in our bed and now you lost your right to privacy, spilling all our secrets when you thought they’d probably die with me” “I went through your phone and caught the girls in your DM’s and took all em home” 🔥🔥 I blast this verse in my car 😂😂👏🏼

Nikki S

Halsey has mentioned in interviews that when she performs this song, it has changed over the years. She would sing “thinking you could live without me” and then after some time passed and she realized she never wanted this man back in her life anymore she started singing “go on and live without me” and now years later and she is so far removed from it that she can sing the original lyrics again.

Nikki S

Ok I finally had some time to get into the reaction! yes as people mentioned G Eazy. They were everywhere in the media when they started dating. A lot of people never heard of him and they even went on to write a song together called Him & I, where they joked that if he ever cheated she would cut off his… Well she was informed by girls in her messages that they had slept with her man G Eazy while they were dating. She found this out right before performing their song together on good morning America. You can see the sadness in her eyes during that performance. The music video features a G Eazy look alike where she shows them drinking, doing drugs, taking care of him through his addiction, then shows him verbally and physically abusing her in the video. And i highly recommend checking that video out, and even more so the perfomance of without me on SNL. That performance is my fav Halsey perfomance. In the background she posts G Eazy’s breakup note for everyone to see. He wrote “ashley I cheated. I’m sorry.” And then all over the page he writes where he cheated. All these different cities, and at their own home and “in more places, I don’t even remember”

English Teacher KP

Yeah, I was definitely getting cheating vibes....especially with that Justin allusion. I can imagine that Halsey's feelings must be very complicated regarding the entire situation. It's definitely not her fault, though, and I hope that they have been able to heal from (what seems like) a very emotionally taxing relationship.

Camila Dejesus

So, this song, like the other angry ones throughout this album, is about G-Easy. Who I'm pretty sure did cheat on her, on top of the literal physical and emotional abuse he inflicted. He's also a musician, tho he wasn't nearly as well known until Halsey and he dated (kind of a Pete Davidson Ariana thing where people knew Pete and he was famous in his own right, but then he kind of blew up) So I'm sure she did actually blame herself for giving him that platform even though it wasn't her fault.

English Teacher KP

Ahhhh, ok this makes sense. I actually went and listened to "Cry Me a River" after posting this to double check that I wasn't mis-remembering things 😭😭😭

You never miss a thing, even when you haven’t watched halsey interviews! They referenced Cry Me a River intentionally (and I think JT is credited). Her reasoning being that people had watched her and G-Eazy have this really public relationship, and fans expected an explanation, and the biggest public couple scandal in halsey’s youth was JT and Britney. So they threw in that reference! And yes, halsey confirms in performances and other songs that he cheated.

English Teacher KP

As I was making the video, several things went awry ("The best laid plans of mice and men...", am I right?). I apologize for the weird lighting/orange color, the clunky editing and the fact that you can't hear the song 😭😭😭 I hope you all still enjoy my analysis and commentary!