Songfacts®:

• A "void" refers to something that is empty, lacking, or without substance or value. This song finds Melanie Martinez going through some rough times with severe anxiety, sadness, and overthinking. She feels like she's stuck in a bottomless pit of self-criticism. In other words, a void. Martinez needs to dig deep to find her inner light.
• The song starts with Martinez realizing something's wrong inside her and feeling society is to blame for some of it. But she knows she's the only one who can judge herself.
  
  The chorus focuses on the negative voices in Martinez' head that bring down her self-esteem. She wants to escape this void and turn down those voices, but it's easier said than done.
  
  In the post-chorus, Melanie uses the image of confessing to a priest to symbolize her own self-evaluation and quest to defeat her dark side. She describes herself as feeling tangled up in her own thoughts and emotions, like a bloody mess.
• Martinez released "Void" as the second single from Portals. The album contains 13 tracks about death, grief and what lies beyond. The singer wrote most of the songs in her home's "portal room" - a space she described to Apple Music as "an entry point for benevolent spirits to come and rest on their journey."
• Portals begins with the song "Death," which is about the initial shock and pain of losing someone close to you. "Void," the second track, is about the numbness and confusion that can come with grief.
  
  "'Void' has many layered meanings for me aside from it being generally about my anxiety, my tendency to overthink, and being overly critical of myself," explained Martinez. "It is also the second stage of the afterlife that I found was the most commonly described experience in hypnotherapy. It is about finding yourself in a dark place that feels like an endless abyss of self-criticism. There is not God, nor man there are able to judge you. You are left alone with your harshest critic, yourself, and the only way out is to find The light within."
• "Void" was the first song Melanie Martinez fully produced on her own. She started with the bass guitar top line, which she had recorded in a voice memo a few days earlier. The chorus melody and lyrics came naturally while looping the bassline. Martinez added a basic programmed drum loop that Rhys Hastings later replaced and mixed with live drums.