Staring at the Sun
by Post Malone (featuring SZA)

Album: Hollywood's Bleeding (2019)
Charted: 34
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Songfacts®:

  • This synth-pop song finds Post Malone and SZA trading verses about the final throes of a doomed relationship.

    If you keep staring at the sun, you won't see
    What you have become, this can't be
    Everything you thought it was
    Blinded by the thought of us


    Post is warning SZA that she is in denial about the state of the relationship. In the same way that the sun can look beautiful, but staring at it is harmful, SZA doesn't want to admit to herself their relationship is damaging her.
  • The metaphor of "staring at the sun" has been used for being blinded about the truth by several other artists, including U2, The Offspring and Jason Aldean.
  • "Staring at the Sun" was a late addition to Hollywood's Bleeding after Post Malone decided that SZA would sound "awesome" on the song. He recalled on Kerwin Frost's Kerwin Frost Talks Youtube series, "We hit her up and she was like, 'I would love to do it.' She is so incredible and just such a sweet person, such a good person."
  • This was Post and SZA's first collaboration together as the only two main artists. However, the pair had previously appeared alongside each other on the remix of Lorde's "Homemade Dynamite" with Khalid in 2017.

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