Breaking Me Down

Album: Hate Me (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • Vocalist Craig Mabbitt sings on this heavy ballad of a woman who appears to have given up.

    You used to be so fearless
    You used to be so strong
    What ever happened to the one that could do no wrong


    Something happened to this woman whom Mabbitt is close to. She was once a strong girl, someone who he considered to be a pearl, but now she's become a shell of herself. Her depression has put a strain on their relationship, which he illustrates with the line, "Holding you up is breaking me down."
  • Asked by Alternative Press if the song was written with a particular person or situation in mind, Mabbitt replied:

    "Songs of this nature can always start off with someone specific in mind and end up being about numerous individuals and situations. Every member and listener ends up taking it to heart in their own way. I've seen fans say this track helped them get over an ex or it helped them through getting over a friend who kept doing them wrong, and I think all those different interpretations of the track is what makes it special."
  • The video was directed by Orie McGinness, the owner of Enlighten Creative Studio in Los Angeles.The clip deals with the struggles of a boy attempting to take care of his mother who has given up on her own life. The treatment was co-written by Papa Roach's Jacoby Shaddix. Mabbitt said:

    "The video is not about someone's mother specifically, but we thought it would depict someone who's the closest to an individual (a parent and a child) and the child picking up all the slack and just can't hold his mother up anymore if she herself doesn't wanna fix it, which is what the song is essentially about—you can't help someone who refuses the help."

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