Numb

Album: Looking 4 Myself (2012)
Charted: 69
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Songfacts®:

  • This feel-good collaboration with Scandinavian house trio Swedish House Mafia is one of several tracks that were inspired by Usher's attendance at the 2011 Coachella Music Festival, which is renowned for its cutting edge lineup.
  • The song finds Usher singing lyrics about forgetting your troubles on the dance floor. He told The Guardian that the cut, "is about having no fear."
  • During a conversation with The Boombox, Usher explained the song, "is what happens when you encounter that wit's end in life, like the only way to move forward is to allow yourself to go numb and go for what you feel."
  • The song's music video starts with footage of Usher at the O2 Arena in Berlin from January 2011. An illness caused him to cut his set short and leave the stage to a chorus of boos from disgruntled fans. We then see scenes of the singer at a hospital bedside juxtaposed with him dancing inside a glass box. Usher tweeted before a preview of the clip: "Sometimes we take for granted moments that allow us to make it thru, ability to just wakeup every morning&take a breath."

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