Delete Forever is a song by Grimes. It is the fifth single and the third track on her fifth album Miss Anthropocene.
Delete Forever is the Demon of Addiction.[1]
Background[]
An early version of the song entitled Black Swan Blues was leaked alongside other unfinished tracks of the album on October 25, 2019. This version of the song had a length of 4:20, with 22 seconds of silence and noises of Grimes in lower volume in the end, as well as slightly different instrumentation throughout.[2] On November 24, 2019 the final version leaked as part of the full album leak.[3]
The stems for Delete Forever were officially released on April 30, 2023 (along with stems from all the songs off of Miss Anthropocene). A total of 233 files were included, including 18 mixes and 2 demos.[4]
Composition[]
The inspiration for the name came from a day when Grimes was deleting old files. She came across a file named Forever, and when her computer asked her if she wanted to permanently "Delete Forever", she thought "I guess so."[5]
Meaning[]
Grimes told Apple Music:[6]
❝ A lot of people very close to me have been super affected by the opioid crisis, or just addiction to opiates and heroin-it's been very present in my life, always. When Lil Peep died, I just got super triggered and just wanted to go make something. It seemed to make sense to keep it super clean sonically and to keep it kind of naked. so it's a pretty simple production for me. Normally I just go way harder. The banjo at the end is comped together and Auto-Tuned, but that is my banjo playing. I really felt like Lil Peep was about to make his great work. It's hard to see anyone die young, but especially from this, 'cause it hit so close to home. ❞
She expanded in a radio interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music:[7]
❝ [What is the song about?] 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. ❞
Further expanding in her Genius breakdown interview for the song:[8]
❝ [How did the song come about?] I actually finished this the day Lil' Peep died. I got super triggered when Lil' Peep died. I really liked him as an artist. I thought he was a great artist, actually. I was just a big fan. So I went into my weird office and made the song. Because now there’s a lot of musicians and stuff dying. But before I was like, “Am I crazy? How is this? Do I just hang out with bad people?” So that kind of entering the public discourse more and the mainstream press more, has just been very intense for me. Because you’re just constantly reminded of the state of affairs.
[What was the songwriting process like?] I have this guitar sample from somewhere. I didn’t actually play the guitar on this one. I sang over the guitar sample. I originally was going to not have drums on it. Then I changed the drums. The drums have changed on this song many times, that’s sort of the main editing that occurred on this. I wanted it to be this raw, punk song—sort of opposite of what Grimes normally is. You know, super clean vocal, not even auto-tune on the verses or anything. Something kind of like emo energy, although it’s actually pretty produced and it’s a loop. ❞
Grimes has gone on record saying that she has never done heroin.[9]
Grimes never wrote a song about opioid related deaths, as it felt exploitative for her to do so, however, the death of Lil Peep pushed her over the edge.[10]
Media[]
Video[]
| Video | Credits | |
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Title | Delete Forever | |
| Premiere | 12 Feb 2020 | |
| Length | 3:04 | |
| Director | Grimes | |
| SFX | Mac Boucher, Neil Hansen | |
| Notes | Caption: It’s about losing friends to the opioid crisis and the self-hatred that arises when the grieving process mimics the behaviors that cost your friends their lives
Music written, produced, performed & engineered by Grimes The video is a collaboration between Grimes, Mac Boucher and Neil Hansen. It depicts a tyrant’s lament as her empire crumbles. Miss Anthropocene is out February 21st! | |
Additional Credits
- Hair: Chanel Croker
- Makeup: Natasha Severino
- Styling: Natasha Advani
- Art: Natalie Fält
- Throne: Carlos Flores
- Gaffer: Matt Hill Key
- Grip: Luis Batres
- P.A: Symone Holliday
Behind the Scenes
_001.jpg "Instagram (12 Jan 2020) 001.jpg (86 KB)")
_001.jpg "Instagram Story (12 Jan 2020) 001.jpg (73 KB)")
_002.jpg "Instagram Story (12 Jan 2020) 002.jpg (87 KB)")
Background
In an interview with Pitchfork, Grimes said:[11]
- This was actually one of the hardest, most intensive videos we’ve ever made. My brother Mac and our roommate Neil [Hansen] literally did all the 3-D modeling and built the whole world. It’s based off book four of Akira, which is one of our favorite illustrations.[12] The original idea for the video is it would be a queen in a palace counting her jewels as the world burns around her, kind of like Nero on the violin while the city burns. It’s super loaded imagery. We were also trying to figure out how we can get better at building things in Blender and just making everything on our own, because it’s so expensive to make CGI, and you don’t have full control. So mostly my brother Mac does it. He’s a good artist who I trust, and we have very similar tastes. We can reduce our price point a lot, so we’re trying to be able to do this effectively in-house. It would be sick to create this level in [video game software] Unreal Engine and allow people to enter it eventually."
Grimes said to Ashnikko when she talked about one of her music videos not being liked at that time by her team due to the scenery it contained:[13]
❝ That happened to me with Delete Forever too. I was like: "This looks so cool, let's make it an official video!" and then everyone's was like: "Fuck you, it's only one shot." And I was like: "Fuck...". ❞
| Video | Credits | |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Grimes 'Delete Forever' Official Lyrics & Meaning | |
| Premiere | Feb 2020 | |
| Length | 4:57 | |
| Director | Genius | |
Background
Transcript
I think I was, like, deleting files on my computer or something, and it was like: "Delete forever?", and I was like: "I guess so, fuck." This song is actually about, this is like quite dark, but I’ve actually had six friends who’ve died from opiate-related deaths. And so this song is just like about the post-war, just being like, «ugh.»
[intro]
I had this guitar sample from somewhere, I didn’t actually play this guitar. Then I changed the drums out, the drums have changed on this song many times. Those were like the main editing that occurred on this. I wanted it to be this raw punk, sort of opposite of what Grimes normally is. You know, super clean vocal, not even auto-tune on the verses or anything. Kind of like emo energy.
[Verse 1:
Lying so awake
Thing's I can't escape
Lately, I just
turn 'em into demons
Flew into the sun
Fucking heroin
Lately, I just
turn 'em into reasons
and excuses]
I’ve never done heroin, but I just, again, a lot of my friends were just doing heroin, which I was always like: "Hey, whoa, okay!" You know, it’s like flying too close to the sun, it’s just thing that makes everybody feel really great. I was always just, like: "Oh, okay, people are doing heroin? Okay, seems kind of dangerous, but it’s probably fine." And then, actually, not fine.
[Pre-Chorus:
Always down when
I'm not up
Guess it's just
my rotten luck
to fill my time
with permanent blue]
The life of an artist, you are always chasing the heightened emotion, and people expect you to be living like that too. So, there’s this expectation from yourself, and from the outside, that you need to be in sort of a fight or flight state like all the time. And just constantly accessing the darkest things that ever happened to you. I think that’s one of the reasons we see so many artists dying and shit like this going on. Because it’s like people use drugs and stuff to chase the heightened state of emotion that they need to be a great performer, or be a great writer.
When I tour and I have to perform my other song about being sexually assaulted, every time I’m on stage I’m just, like: "Fuck, this is crazy. I have to just constantly think about this song..." The physic toll of being an artist, it’s just super intense. When you see people dying young and abusing stuff, you’re just, like: "Man, I see how this is permeating through the scene." or whatever.
[But I can't see above it
Guess I fucking love it
But oh,
I didn't mean to]
Well, I think it’s like the live fast, die young thing. It’s just like, it’s fun to live fast. It’s fun to be in the risk-taking zone. If I’m having a quiet Sunday, I’m just like: "What can we do? Is there some crazy thing we can go do?" And I’m, like: "Man, I’m addicted, I can’t have a chill Sunday." [laughs]
[I see everything
I see everything
Don't you tell me now
that I don't want it
But I did everything
I did everything
More lines on the mirror
than a sonnet]
Well, I mean sonnets, you look at Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, is like early pop music, you know? It’s like: "Oh love story, can’t be together, hh my God, and she’s so, oh my God, and then they die." I was just thinking about how Shakespeare is sort of the Britney Spears of the day.
[Verse 2:
Funny how they think
us naive when we're
on the brink
Innocence was fleeting
like a season]
It’s like when people are 13, they are pretty well aware of the state of the world. I think everyone’s living a little harder than everyone thinks everyone’s living, I guess.
[Cannot comprehend
Lost so many men
Lately, all their ghosts
turn into reasons
and excuses]
My last few friends who died, I actually didn’t feel anything. I actually was just, like: "uuh, okay.", it was weird, it was like I probably still hadn’t processed the situation.
So, the line, lost so many men, is more I was almost thinking like in war, it’s like, «Man down». My best group of friends got eradicated off the planet, and it’s sort of feels like I have this weird post-war feeling, and I could not relate to anybody because most people had not had a bunch of their friend die, really violent, fucked up, scary deaths.
When I’d read about people coming back from war and stuff I was, like: "I feel like this is what I’m feeling - walking around society like a ghost." When you try to tell people about it, people are just, like: "Whoa, what the fuck?" They just don’t get it, it’s too crazy.
It sort of caused me to become really depressed and be really isolated, and I’m not saying what I’ve been through is anything like what someone who’s been in active combat has been through, but I would just, I got really into war stuff, because I was relating to the feeling.
[Outro]
I think I actually finished this on the day Lil Peep died. I got like super triggered when Lil Peep died. And I just kind of like went to my weird office and made this song.
| Video | Credits | |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Diary of a Song - Delete Forever (2020) | |
| Premiere | 20 Mar 2020 | |
| Length | 8:22 | |
| Director | The New York Times | |
| Notes | The singer, songwriter and producer Claire Boucher breaks down how the opioid crisis inspired one of her most vulnerable songs yet. | |
Background
Transcript
[Ringing] [Music playing] Hey.
Hey. How’s it going?
Good. What’s going on?
Not much. I’m eating Raisin Bran. [Laughs]
The fact that you do everything for Grimes — you write. You perform. You record yourself. You produce, engineer. You make the art.
I shouldn’t. I should probably stop doing all these things. It’s insane.
[Music – Grimes, “Delete Forever“] [Singing] I see everything. I see everything. Don’t you tell me now that I don’t want it.
This album has been many years in the making. Where in the process did ‘Delete Forever’ start?
That was, like, an early — one of the first songs. ’Cause I know I made most of it when Lil Peep died. I’ve had, like, a few of my very close friends die from opioid addiction-related problems. So when Lil Peep died, I was just super hardcore triggered. Like, I just had a mini breakdown. But then kind of just, like, went to work on music.” [Guitar playing]
You ever like go to a punk show or something and someone just plays an acoustic? Like, I love, like, sort of like violent acoustic punk music. The guitar is weirdly actually, like, from a sample pack that I, like, stretched and pitched a bunch. I just wanted it to sound really raw because I was just feeling really raw.
There aren’t many Grimes songs that are based around acoustic guitar, right?
No. I weirdly like acoustic guitar. I just can’t be that basic, like, from an ego perspective. Sorry. Oh, it’s nice and mushy now.
[Music – Grimes, “Delete Forever“] [Singing] Lying so awake, things I can't escape, lately, I just turn 'em into demons
I feel like there was, like, eight years where I just couldn’t get over my first friend who passed away, because I was, like, very, very close with her. Like, it was just really intense, like, when you’re that young to have, like, one of your best friends die in such a, like, disturbing way, I guess.
[Singing] Flew into the sun, fucking heroin, lately, I just turn 'em into reasons
I’ve never actually done heroin. But it is a little bit about being self-destructive and how shitty you feel being self-destructive after your friends fucking died. You’re just like shitting on your friend’s grave by just, like, dealing with the grief, by doing this thing that killed them basically.
[Music – Grimes, “Delete Forever“] [Singing] But I can't see above it, guess I fucking love it but, oh, I didn't mean to
How do we emotionally deal with this stuff? Do you know, like, Jack Kirby’s ‘New Gods’? I just got really compelled by the title. I was like, yeah. I want to make new gods. I want to make up the goddess of climate change, or in this case, the goddess of opioid addiction. Some of the first great art that we see is, like, the personification of painful or beautiful abstract concepts as gods. Maybe that helps people cope better. Maybe that helps society come together better. It seems easier to digest certain things when they’re fictionalized. So this song is kind of — yes, kind of meant to be sort of about the goddess of addiction, the demon of addiction, or something like that.
[Music – Grimes, “Delete Forever“] [Singing] But I did everything, I did everything, more lines on the mirror than a sonnet
The drums are kind of my favorite part.
It sounds like a ’90s pop rock radio song or something.
Yeah. I think that 808 at the chorus, first chorus, is slightly too strong now, but whatever. [Chimes]
I like it.
You do like it? O.K. I can’t tell if it’s insane. Sometimes I’m like, whoa. Might’ve gone too far.
Because the guitar is a loop, I was trying to make it artificially make it feel more organic. You know? Artificially make it feel more organic.
Yeah. No, I was going through doing all these weird production things to make it sound like — just like little textures and things in there, like, so that it’s, like, you can barely hear them, but it just adds like a — [Sound effects]
So are there any real instruments on this track or is it all digital?
No, there’s, like, a real banjo, real violin. I had just always dreamed of making music with a banjo. And it was sort of like this dream that was, like, cut short tragically. The first instrument, before I made ‘Visions,’ I bought a banjo. And it was like $126. I remember this whole thing. It was my first instrument. And I was like, oh, I love Dolly Parton. I’m going to make a country record and be like a country artist. Which was, like, so crazy. And then as I was bringing the banjo home — I got it on Craigslist — I was bringing it home and this guy fucking followed me off the bus and followed me into this, like, stairwell of my apartment building. I was, like, wait, is this guy going to attack me right now? So I just, like, turned around and just started screaming and beating him with the banjo. And I destroyed the banjo, but he left. Then I was like — like the craziest..
So you paid $126 for a banjo, like, 10 years ago.
Yeah.
And then you beat a man with it in self-defense.
Yeah, yeah. [Laughs]
OK! Wow. [Violin playing]
And what is your skill like on the violin?
Extremely poor, but I’m really good at comping and studio magic.
So you’re just playing little bits at a time?
Yeah. I’d be, like [Vocalizing notes] Tape it in. [Vocalizing notes] Tape it in. Like, I could put in 200 hours and be good at the violin, or I could put in, like, 45 minutes and make something really beautiful. And then, like, make more things.
What if you hired a violin player?
Or I could hire a violin player.
But that doesn’t seem like it’s an option for you. Is there also like a D.I.Y. ethos?
Yeah, I guess. It’s not so much an ethos as a comfortable — like, I’m just so much more comfortable alone. [Music playing] So you get this done really fast, this version of it, and then what happens?
I was super embarrassed of this song. Like, it’s so clean and the vocals are so high and, like, I’m still kind of embarrassed of singing, to be honest. It’s just very naked. It’s like when things are cloaked in, like, cool sounds and stuff, it’s less vulnerable.
It’s such a nice counterpoint from something like ‘4AEM.’ [Music – Grimes, “4AEM”] Do you think this is the most vulnerable Grimes song?
One of them, for certain, for sure. Can you say, ‘for sure-tain’?
And was it cathartic to finally write a song about it?
I’ve been wanting to write a song about it for a long time. But I just also, like, felt shitty writing a song about it because, you know. Like if it was all streaming and I didn’t have to sell it on iTunes and it wasn’t on the vinyl, it would, like, make me feel better, because there’s something about, like, selling it that just makes me feel really uncomfortable.
[Music – Grimes, “Delete Forever“] [Singing] Always down when I'm not up, guess it's just my rotten luck, to fill my time with permanent blue
Are you making a video for this song?
We’re recreating a scene from ‘Akira,’ the cover of Book Four. It’s sort of a Nero-type thing. It’s, like, an empress sitting in, like, a decaying city as it’s, like, being bombed to the ground. ‘Akira’ is a perfect piece of art actually, pretty much. And it was all made by one fucking guy, Katsuhiro Otomo. It’s crazy.
There you go, just like Grimes. [Music playing]
Where did you make — are you feeling OK?
Oh, yeah. Oh no, I’m just like — this is probably TMI, but I can’t burp. I have this burping issue.
Is that a function of pregnancy? Or you could never burp?
Never burped. I’ve burped two or three times in my whole life.
Wow.Lyrics[]
[Verse 1]
Lying so awake, things I can't escape
Lately, I just turn 'em into demons
Flew into the sun, fucking heroin
Lately, I just turn 'em into reasons and excuses
[Pre-Chorus]
Always down when I'm not up, guess it's just my rotten luck
To fill my time with permanent blue
But I can't see above it, guess I fucking love it
But, oh, I didn't mean to
[Chorus]
I see everything, I see everything
Don't you tell me now that I don't want it
But I did everything, I did everything
More lines on the mirror than a sonnet (Woo)
[Verse 2]
Funny how they think us naive when we're on the brink
Innocence was fleeting like a season
Cannot comprehend, lost so many men
Lately, all their ghosts turn into reasons and excuses
[Pre-Chorus]
Always down when I'm not up, guess it's just my rotten luck
To fill my time with permanent blue
But I can't see above it, guess I fucking love it
But, oh, I didn't mean to
[Chorus]
I see everything, I see everything
Don't you tell me now that I don't want it
But I did everything, I did everything
More lines on the mirror than a sonnet (Woo)
[Chorus]
I see everything, I see everything
Don't you tell me now that I don't want it
But I did everything, I did everything
More lines on the mirror than a sonnet
References[]
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20200228203815/https://www.grimesmusic.com/
- ↑ https://youtu.be/IdWSTpcVV8I?t=315
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads/comments/e173zn/leak_grimes_miss_anthropocene/
- ↑ https://grimes.wetransfer.com/downloads/ac9dd0c91efb624faa8b608bc1b3144720230501062137/e22ff7
- ↑ https://genius.com/Grimes-delete-forever-lyrics
- ↑ https://music.apple.com/us/album/miss-anthropocene/1496782284
- ↑ https://youtu.be/mGzsPEqJPRE?t=24
- ↑ https://genius.com/Grimes-delete-forever-lyrics
- ↑ Delete Forever#Genius Interview
- ↑ https://youtu.be/QIo2DULJkN4?si=TUzMNVYpS3MWKjVr&t=995
- ↑ https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/grimes-miss-anthropocene-interview/
- ↑
- ↑ https://youtu.be/aEfz5moPAyM?si=EfvFhFAYXm4lLVgn&t=610
- ↑ https://youtu.be/7VqMFyQCDEQ?si=BPnYIOqeudQtwxBW&t=2464
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