Self Care

Album: Swimming (2018)
Charted: 61 33
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, Mac Miller chronicles an emotional spiral driven by how he feels the media are shooting down his character. He holes himself up in his crib, spending his nights all liquored up and his mornings high while "war outside" rages on as he spins out into oblivion.
  • In May 2018 , Mac Miller reportedly drove his Mercedes G-Wagon into a power pole, knocking it down before fleeing the scene along with two passengers. The Pittsburgh rapper was taken into custody and released on $15,000 bail. According to the arresting officers, Miller's blood alcohol content was almost double the legal limit at the time of his arrest. On this track, he seemingly references his May arrest on DUI and hit-and-run charges.

    That Mercedes drove me crazy, I was speedin'
    Somebody save me from myself, yeah


    Miller told Vulture that the track was actually written long before the incident took place, but he was in a similar place in his head.

    "Stuff like that always happens with my music. These themes will just connect because of, maybe, a state of mind I was in," the rapper explained. "There's part of that frame of mind I was in at that time that is with me now. This s--t always happens to me. I'll say a line like, 'That Mercedes drove me crazy, I was speeding...' I made that song way before the s--t went down. But it's still, the s--t just connects. You just have to get out of your own way, and everything will just connect for itself."
  • Mac Miller dated singer Ariana Grande for a couple of years before splitting in May 2018 due to their busy schedules. Many of Ariana's fans were surprised that she'd got herself involved with the rapper, who openly struggled with substance abuse. The songstress subsequently called the relationship "toxic."

    Though Miller never mentions Grande by name, it seems he is reflecting on how their relationship is perceived by the public.

    And I love you, I don't love nobody else, yeah
    Tell them they can take that bulls--t elsewhere
    Self care, I'm treatin' me right, yeah
    Hell yea, we're gonna be alright


    Miller seems to be accepting his issues with drink and drugs and acknowledges that self-care is necessary in order to alter people's negative perceptions.
  • The Christian Weber-directed music video shows Miller buried six feet under in a pine box casket. It pays homage to a scene in Kill Bill: Vol. 2, as the rapper punches his way out of the shallow grave.
  • In the week following Mac Miller's death, this debuted at #33 on the Hot 100. It was Miller's first Top 40 entry as a lead artist and second overall following his featured contribution to Ariana Grande's "The Way," which peaked at #9 in 2013.

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