Melanie Martinez is back from the dead with her brand new song “Death.” The song explores topics of life and death and rebirth, a clever metaphor for her musical career as well. In this sense, the song acts as the rebirth of the singer’s career after her second hiatus.
Melania Martinez is coming back from her musical break for her third studio album ‘PORTALS,’ expected to be released toward the end of March 2023. Her previous studio album was in 2019 by title ‘K-12.’ After her massively successful single “The Bakery” from ‘After School’ EP in 2020, this is her re-entrance to the musical stage.
As a musical artist, Melanie Martinez must have gone through the gruesome experience of facing her critics every waking day. It almost seems as if you cannot do right at all. Her musical career and her personal life are all on the public stage once she made it. At every chance they get, they try to bury you down–they actually don’t want your career to die, because if that happens, they get no more gossip. But they want to milk you out for everything you have. In a sense, this is like them digging your grave for you, burying you alive, but letting you breathe just enough to survive long enough for their press.
Listen to “DEATH” by Melanie Martinez
Melanie Martinez “DEATH” Lyrics Review and Song Meaning
The intro to the song is a chant assuring that life and death are just flipsides of a coin. You die and you are reborn again (according to some philosophies). Are we living just to die or are we dying just to live? Is death actually the better option out of the two? We might never know.
In the first verse of the song, Melanie Martinez draws a picture of her own funeral. ‘They’ have gathered in numbers today–more people than she has ever seen when she was alive. They have fresh flowers in their hands and there’s liquid dropping from their eyes. Some start saying their eulogies–some of the kindest words she has ever heard when she was alive. So, she realizes that this is all an act. Their words mean nothing to her now that she is dead. But, is she though?
This is a metaphorical funeral. Critics have gathered in masses to celebrate them putting down yet another artist with their penmanship on online blogs and tabloids. Melanie can only be dead as much as she wants them to be dead. It is only a matter of finding her strength to stand back up. She knows that she will be taking some of these keyboard heroes to the other side when she is done with them.
But the sad reality is that celebrities can never win. She wins-the critics win. She loses-the critics win. There’s really no way to keep them down but just try to keep them at bay.
Death has come to me, kissed me on the cheek
in popular culture, Death is personified as a dark, ominous figure with no expressions. A touch from Death means, well, death. Melanie says she was kissed by death. This could mean that either she had a far worse interaction with Death than any other person could, or that she was blessed by Death itself. Either way, she is back from Death’s grip. She was able to rise from the rubble that her critics threw at her. And one who survives Death and comes back is a far worse competitor to deal with. “What doesn’t kill you, make you stronger,” right?
Throughout the song, Melanie Martinez cleverly incorporates many ghostly elements into the song lyrics. She mentions burning sage and candles, flickering lights, and barriers between life and death.
Toward the end of the song, Melanie Martinez leaves us with harsh realities. “I know it’s morbid / But we all die one day.” This is almost a voodoo topic to discuss openly, but this is the truth of the situation. We all just spend our days, hours, and minutes getting ever so closer to our death. It can come in 90 years or it can come today. So, be good while you are here. There’s no point trying to make someone else miserable in your short stay here.
On a more positive note, Melanie Martinez just announced her return to music with this song and that she will be stronger than ever. So, you can be, too.
Let us hear what you think about this song in the comments below. Read the complete lyrics to the song on Genius.