r/halsey • u/wouldvebeennice • 8h ago
General Discussion Breakup making me connect with HFK
Hopeless Fountain Kingdom has until now been the one Halsey album I don't really connect with deeper than a surface level. I like listening to the Live at Webster Hall version, but I didn't resonate with the sound beyond thinking it was cool or the lyrics other than 100 Letters, which I think resembles a lot of their other work more than other songs on this record. But I'm going through my first ever breakup from my first relationship, and this record is really starting to resonate with me.
Now or Never especially is touching me right now. I think in the past when I heard this song I just remembered it as something I heard on the radio and appreciated on a surface level. I didn't hear that the topic is actually both painful and empowering, and I didn't have the context for it. The lyrics have been coming back to me now that I'm over a week out from the breakup: she broke up with me, but I really needed her to show me that she would fight for us and it didn't take me any time to come to close and move out. I'm still reeling and wondering why we got to this point because I genuinely didn't want to break up but I didn't cry or try to talk her down in the moment because I do just need someone who can show their love clearly.
I see so many shades of myself and my relationship in this album now. I remember reading an interview or something where Halsey mentions that she used to refer to her personality as "the devil in me" and that's where that song comes from. I think about the parts of me that were sidelined, albeit not violently and I was content getting some of these needs met from relationships other than my girlfriend, but now that she's not here I guess I can wake up that part of me. I think about that with Angel on Fire too. I didn't blame my relationship or my girlfriend for this, but it's time for me to try valuing the parts of me I put on the shelf while in this relationship and leading up to it. I can see shades of Strangers and Lie in the last few weeks of our relationship, and the breakup is really giving depth to Eyes Closed and Alone and Strangers.
Do you have any personal connections to this album? What songs helped you get through a breakup, Halsey or others?

