Ya'aburnee

Album: If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power (2021)
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Songfacts®:

  • Halsey ends their harrowing journey to motherhood, which is chronicled through the concept album If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, with a testament of love to their partner and baby on "Ya'aburnee," a stripped-down guitar track that finally finds the singer at peace. "I start this journey with 'Okay, fine - if I can't have love, then I want power,'" she told Apple Music. "If I can't have a relationship, I'm going to work. If I can't be loved interpersonally, I'm going to be loved by millions on the internet, or I'm going to crave attention elsewhere. I'm so steadfast with this mentality, and then comes this baby. The irony is that the most power I've ever had is in my agency, being able to choose. You realize, by the end of the record, I chose love."
  • "Ya'aburnee" is Arabic for "you bury me." Halsey is so in love with their partner, she'd rather die first than ever go through the grief of losing him. "Darling, you will bury me before I bury you," she sings.
  • On July 14, 2021, Halsey gave birth to their first child, a boy named Ender Ridley, with screenwriter Alev Aydin. The singer previously suffered several miscarriages due to endometriosis, a gynecological condition that can lead to infertility. Dolly Parton, Julianne Hough, Cyndi Lauper, Monica, and Emma Bunton (of The Spice Girls), were also diagnosed with the disorder.
  • The album was produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Aside from their work in Nine Inch Nails, the duo also carved out careers as TV/film composers. If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power is their first album produced for another artist.
  • Halsey learned from Reznor and Ross, who are both fathers, that she could let herself be happy and still create meaningful art that has an edge. "I can still stay who I am and have a family and have things be pure," she told Capitol Records, "but still make art that rages and festers and has all these wild, visceral elements but be able to go home and watch Elmo. I don't have to lose that angst and that rage just because I'm hopefully going to be a good mom."

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