Halsey Puts Years-Long Emotional Ride to Rest on ‘Die 4 Me’ Extended Version

Halsey wasn’t finished. Back in 2019, the singer was invited to contribute a verse to Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding deep cut “Die For Me” alongside himself and Future. The singer had worked on popular collaborations up to that point, including “Him & I” with G-Eazy,” though rarely anything that utilized her skillset beyond having her serve as a chorus-providing accessory.

But on “Die For Me,” Halsey was confounding in their release of pure venom in each scathing lyric — and that wasn’t even all they had to say. “I know it’s been a while since the last time you heard from me,” she acknowledged on the song. “Grew into a savage and that’s why they gave this verse to me.” Now, four years later, Halsey is back with “Die 4 Me,” their solo extended cut that picks up where they left off with some notable updates.

Halsey’s featured appearance appears as the second verse on her own recording. Her delivery throughout is more reserved, almost haunting as the anger in her tone is subdued by the passing of time but never invalidated. When she sings “I sold 40 million copies of a break-up note,” a stark increase from the 15 million she boasts about on the original, the lyric about her 2018 hit “Without Me” is punctuated by a chuckle.

Months before the original recording of “Die For Me” was released, Halsey appeared as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. During their performance of “Without Me,” the singer plastered the stage screen with text messages they received from their ex, presumably rapper G-Eazy. “I’m so sorry Ashley, I cheated,” one read. “At home in Los Angeles … New Orleans … Austin … Minneapolis … More places I can’t even remember.”

“I hope you think about me every time you touch it/I hope your new girl hears this and she loves it,” Halsey sings on a new opening verse, building on the initial recording where she hissed: “I don’t play anymore, I went through your phone/And called the girls in your DMs and took all them home” and “Brought some strangers in our beds so now you lost your right to privacy/Spilling all our secrets, you thought they’d probably die with me.”

In 2020, G-Eazy released “Had Enough” on Everything’s Strange Here. Certain lyrics, like “Talkin’ ’bout my crazy ass ex” and “You can’t have a good thing, you love to break shit,” or the lazier “You wonder how I lived without you,” directly recall lines from throughout Halsey’s discography, including newly surfaced verses on “Die 4 Me.”

“Die 4 Me” arrives with a new verse, an interlude, and a bridge that finally puts this years-long emotional ride to rest. “This is the last time, I’ma do you the honor/I’ll give you a headline, I know I shouldn’t bother/This is a lesson to take, hold someone tight and they break/Then you say it’s a mistake, but you meant it anyway,” she sings. “Now, you can’t blame me, tell them you made me/Ignore the shit that you did on the daily/Think that you played me, but you can’t save me/All of that shit ’bout how I’m fucking crazy.”

From Rolling Stone US.