Graveyard

Album: Manic (2019)
Charted: 29 34
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "Graveyard" is an emotional track that delves into the corrosive power of love. It finds Halsey looking back at a relationship that led her down a dark path. Despite warning signs, the singer let her emotion rule to keep the love alive.

    It's crazy when
    The thing you love the most
    Is the detriment
    Let that sink in


    Halsey continued to let her love take her deeper and deeper into a destructive place.

    I know when you go
    Down all your darkest roads
    I woulda followed all the way to the graveyard


    She would have done anything for her lover, even though it wasn't in her best interest.
  • Halsey said in a statement regarding the melancholic track: "The song is about being in love with someone who is in a bad place and loving them so much that you don't realize that you're going to that bad place with them. It's also about learning to care about yourself enough not to follow."
  • Halsey debuted the song on September 10, 2019 at Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
  • Speaking with Zane Lowe on Apple Music's Beats 1, Halsey explained that Manic's first single, "Without Me," was a "blind declaration of love." She added that its second single, "Graveyard," is more about taking accountability for her actions after letting her heart rule her head.

    "In some ways, it's a metaphor. It's about like loving someone to death, kind of. And then in other ways, it's actually pretty literal," she said. "There's a lot of moments in the song that are pretty literal, which was kind of scary to write about. But you know me, I find the scary thing and I do it."
  • Halsey performed the song live for the first time during her headline set at the iHeartRadio Festival on September 20, 2019 at Las Vegas' T-Mobile Arena. "You followed them so far you don't even realize that you're hurting yourself along the way," she told the crowd, describing the track's inspiration. "This song is about loving yourself enough to know that you should not follow them."
  • Directed by Anton Tammi (Lykke Li, JIL), the music video stars Euphoria actress Sydney Sweeney alongside Halsey.

    The clip starts with Halsey's picture of a young woman (Sweeney) coming to life and we then see the two frolicking through a colorful amusement park. When Halsey discovers an aquarium, it is the same exact setting she danced through with her brother, Sevian, in the "Clementine" visual. At that point, Sweeney leaves her and Halsey returns to her room alone. It seems the whole episode was just the singer's imagination running wild.
  • Halsey gives an abrupt gasp after she sings the line, "The warning signs can feel like they're butterflies." The singer told the story behind the unexpected addition to the song during an interview with UK's Capital FM.

    Halsey explained that about a year before she penned "Graveyard," she was going through a breakup. During a phone call to her mother, she said, "I just don't understand how I could have been so stupid, we were so in love, he gave me butterflies."

    "That was your first mistake," the singer's mom responded, adding that the "butterflies" she felt were warning signs as she was "scared and being manipulated."

    When it came time to write the bridge for "Graveyard," Halsey came up with the line, "The warning signs can feel like they're butterflies"; she then gasped at the realization this was exactly the advice her mom had given her a year earlier.

    "I think the gasp was maybe me realizing it," Halsey said. "That's why it stayed in there. And now my mom's like, 'I wrote that!'"

Comments: 1

  • Camille from Toronto, OhIncredible lyrics and vocals. Halsey sang this with Lady Antebellum at the CMA awards along with What If I Never Get Over You and I had to hear it again. I hadn’t heard Halsey before. I was blown away. What an artist and I will be checking out more of her tunes. As for Graveyard, using such a visual word is making the point that a toxic relationship can literally lead to your death. You may be digging your own grave. It happens far too often. Halsey is saying heed the warning signs and listen to your gut.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Spot The Real Red Hot Chili Peppers Song Titles

Spot The Real Red Hot Chili Peppers Song TitlesMusic Quiz

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have some rather unusual song titles - see if you can spot the real ones.

"Private Eyes" - The Story Behind the Song

"Private Eyes" - The Story Behind the SongSong Writing

How a goofy detective movie, a disenchanted director and an unlikely songwriter led to one of the biggest hits in pop history.

Meshell Ndegeocello

Meshell NdegeocelloSongwriter Interviews

Meshell Ndegeocello talks about recording "Wild Night" with John Mellencamp, and explains why she shied away from the spotlight.

Steely Dan

Steely DanFact or Fiction

Did they really trade their guitarist to The Doobie Brothers? Are they named after something naughty? And what's up with the band name?

Dick Wagner (Alice Cooper/Lou Reed)

Dick Wagner (Alice Cooper/Lou Reed)Songwriter Interviews

The co-writer/guitarist on many Alice Cooper hits, Dick was also Lou Reed's axeman on the Rock n' Roll Animal album.

Harold Brown of War

Harold Brown of WarSongwriter Interviews

A founding member of the band War, Harold gives a first-person account of one of the most important periods in music history.