The year 2022 has been pretty good for new music releases so far. From Kendrick Lamar to Drake to Kanye West to Camila Cabello to Harry Styles to BTS, we are only six months in. With Beyoncé announcing a brand new album and releasing the lead single, 2022 might just be complete.
Beyoncé returned from a long hiatus to announce her seventh studio album ‘RENAISSANCE’ released later this year. This album follows her last major album ‘Lemonade’ released in 2016. On June 21, 2022, Beyonce released the lead single from the album, titled “Break My Soul.”
The intro to “Break My Soul” has been heavily inspired by and samples Big Freedia’s 2014 track “Explode.” New Orleans-based rapper, Big Freedia has been a big influence on Beyonce’s music. The song hopes to inspire the freedom of the soul and the mind. Beyonce seems to directly talk about the rat race that most human beings bing themselves throughout their adult life.
Listen to “BREAK MY SOUL” by Beyoncé
Beyoncé “Break My Soul” Lyrics Meaning and Song Review
In the first verse of the song, Beyonce seems to go at the 9-to-5 rat race that most of us humans are stuck in. The majority of the population lives paycheck to paycheck and a lot of them lost their jobs during the pandemic. This put immense stress on the people and some even took their own lives.
Work by nine
Then off past five
And they work my nerves, that’s why I cannot sleep at night
In the above lyrics, Beyonce hints at how some jobs just suck the living soul out of people. Although traditional working hours are from 9 AM to 5 PM, Beyonce says some people are at work before 9 AM and work past 5 PM. This is not by choice most of the time and this takes a big toll on one’s sanity.
I’m lookin’ for motivation
I’m lookin’ for a new foundation
Beyonce is looking for brighter pastures–or she is trying to tell us to do so. She has already found her love and monetized it. This song is food for thought for the listener.
In the second verse of the song, Queen Bey says that she is back to doing what she loves the most–music. Finally, she can let her hair down-a sign of relaxation.
“Break My Soul” is a song of the house music genre. Beyonce shouts out the roots of house music, too. The queens and doms could be a reference to the Chicago queer community through which house music grew its roots.
In the third and final verse of the song, Beyonce circles back to the original theme of the song. She motivates us to find our own passion in life and pursue it. If your passion in life is to work a 9-5 job, so be it. As long as you are happy and healthy, what you do does not really matter. However, Queen Bey also reminds us that nothing falls on our laps. We have to go seek it. We have to work to carve out our own freedom.
The same logic applies to matters of the heart. However, Beyonce reminds us that love lives within ourselves and not within the people we sleep with.
We go up and down, lost and found
Searchin’ for love
Looking for something that lives inside me
Both love and happiness are mental states that generate within ourselves. There is no love bigger than loving yourself. Do you agree with Beyonce on this? Maybe the heartbreaks are worth the forever love from a soulmate?
Beyonce leaves us with some closing thoughts–release the anger you bottle up inside yourself. This will free up your mind. Take the pedal off of our 9-5 job that sucks your soul. Have some work-life balance. Get rid of that trade that causes you so much stress until it’s done. Let love flow and let everything else take its own cause.
Maybe it is time to let go of that stress off your back. Stress is a bigger threat to humankind than any other disease!
Let us hear what you think about this song in the comments below. Check out the complete lyrics on Genius.