"Take My Breath" by The Weeknd, Sunday, October 3, 2021 [Trigger Warning: Discussion of a potentially dangerous practice]

 

Berlin's 1986 light rock hit "Take My Breath Away" in its somewhat cheesy ascending scaled-note chorus speaks to the common human experience of falling in love with someone. The old aphorism, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away," speaks to the times when life surprises us so much that if the shock of the good surprise were to kill us, we would have died happy. In other words, I may feel "so happy that I could die." We can say that these moments are breath-taking, like when you see a Van Gogh in person, see a beautiful woman, or experience new life.  Perhaps this is what The Weeknd intended for his latest single "Take My Breath," but in typical Weeknd fashion, the video and the lyrics hint at a darker side of those breathtaking moments.

YOU'RE OFFERING YOURSELF TO ME LIKE SACRIFICE. Since Beauty Behind the Madness brought The Weeknd to the forefront of popular music back in 2015 with songs like "Can't Feel My Face" and "The Hills,” Abel Makkonen Tesfaye has been disguising adult themes as catchy pop tunes, talking about substance abuse like it were a love song. Growing up in Toronto as the child of two separated Ethiopian immigrants, Abel started smoking pot at the age of 11 and turned to harder drugs, shoplifting in his teens to support his habit. In the past he claimed that he couldn't write music without drugs. His masterpieces came from the inner turmoil of broken relationships and his love for mind-altering substances. However, in August this year, he claimed that he was "sober-lite," meaning that he would no longer use hard drugs, calling them "a crutch." If Abel relied on drugs to process his pain and create art and he's gone mostly sober, what then did he draw inspiration from for his upcoming album? The Weeknd has tweeted several hints about the new album, presumably called Dawn. And on August 6th, he released the single and video for "Take My Breath." The video depicts a dark club in which the attendants are involved with erotic asphyxiation, a practice that is potentially deadly, yet is said to produce a euphoria by those who practice it. Just as in "Can't Feel My Face," listeners question where is the line between healthy and toxic. Viewers question the line between reality and metaphor. Whenever I listen to The Weeknd, I have many questions: at what point does it turn from fun to tragic?At what point does the binge become less about fun and more about dependence? And are listeners part of the problem? Do we have front-row seats to a train wreck--a potential Amy Winehouse situation? Are we enabling young Abel's downfall by funding him as he produces messed up, devilishly divine art?

MAKE IT LAST FOREVER. "How do you end up in the backroom of a BDSM club?" daytime Ed Sheeran might ask. It might sound judgmental, but it’s a valid question. Why do people get into kink? From housewives reading Fifty Shades of Grey wondering what it would be like to be tied up to underground sex clubs in New York City to whatever is on the dark web to something as mild as foot or sock fetish (see Honest Trailer's "Every Tarantino Movie”)  many people experience a cold sweat from something those who don't share the attraction would deem abnormal, unnatural, immoral, or hilarious. There's little funnier than the punchline of someone's sexual fantasy being misread, like this scene from the movie Horrible Bosses, when the crew think that they have hired a hitman, but instead the man is a professional urinator. And you better believe that there's a whole category of humiliation fantasies. But on a serious note, "Take My Breath" uses imagery from erotic asphyxiation, which brings up questions about 1) the practice 2) the dangers 3) the line between euphoria and suicide 4) metaphorical implications, like trust, vulnerability, a person's mental state when being in love/lust, suicidal tendencies, the line between partying and breaking down, etc. The practice of erotic asphyxiation is dangerous. In the case of autoeroticism, many times it's misruled as a suicide rather than an accidental death. Sometimes partners can be charged with murder if something goes wrong. Wikipedia lists several notable examples of death by erotic asphyxiation, though I didn't recognize any examples: an 18th century Czech composer, a geisha, a conservative British MP in the 1994. In 1983, a mother sued Hustler after her 14-year-old son died from the practice. She claimed that he learned about it from the magazine. Autoerotic asphyxiation was the shocking death to a recurring character on Bojack Horseman season 2, and it was even one of the ways that Kenny dies in a South Park episode. The Weeknd wakes up on the club floor at the end of the video, gasping for life-giving air. We breath a sigh of relief. That could have been an embarrassing way to die. Undoubtably it would be a shameful death. Then again, SNL's Halloween skit with Chance the Rapper has an erotic asphyxiation death beat. Stay safe everyone!

Read the lyrics on Genius.