Adele is back, baby. Sad girls had to wait six long years for this queen to break up with her man so that she could release another fire album for us all to belt out in the car with tears streaming down our faces.
Since we last heard from Adele, she got married and subsequently divorced, inspiring the hit album 30, to be released on November 19. Much of the album’s hit single “Easy On Me” is similar to her other singles like “Hello” and “Someone Like You.” She holds the same powerful, deep-voiced, long-noted melodies, accompaniment of a piano, and a black-and-white music video that starts with her in an empty house, having a phone conversation with an unknown person. What’s different about “Easy On Me” is that the tone and lyrics are much softer and more tender: she is no longer seeking vengeance, repentance, or telling her ex to eff-off, but instead she is debriefing a love lost — the father of her child and ex-husband.
“There ain’t no room for things to change / When we are both so deeply stuck in our ways / You can’t deny how hard I have tried / I changed who I was to put you both first / But now I give up.”
It’s a different kind of heartbreak, one that she has no doubt constantly replayed in her mind, searching for solutions but coming up dry. It’s a reckoning with herself that she was “still a child” when she entered the relationship, and it’s okay to put herself first and move on.
Andrea Sadowski is working towards her BA in Global Development Studies, with a minor in anthropology and Mennonite studies. When she's not sitting in front of her computer, Andrea enjoys climbing mountains, sleeping outside, cooking delicious plant-based food, talking to animals, and dismantling the patriarchy.
