“Killing Me” by Conan Gray, Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Last Halloween, Conan Gray released the third single, “Killing Me” from his 2024 album Found Heaven. The single followed “Never Ending Song,” which was a stylistic shift to ‘80s-styled production-based maximalist pop. The second single from the then-upcoming album was the personal ballad “Winner,” which was much more in the style of Gray’s typical confessional singer-songwriter mode. “Winner” would be the final track on Found Heaven. The third single, today’s song, returned Gray to the ‘80s pop sound that molded the album. Found Heaven is an album of glam rock experimentation, ballads, and new wave pop songs; sometimes these elements mix. The best example is when “Killing Me,” the album's penultimate song transforms from a piano ballad to a synth rocker at the first chorus.

TOO BUSY DECEIVIN’ AND CHEATIN’ AND LYIN’ AND COMPETIN’. The stories that Conan Gray tells in the album’s lyrics and promotional interviews he has given to Billboard, Zach Sang, and others are simultaneously raw confessionals and opaque concerning personal details.  Gray shares just enough to keep the story compelling and not too much to keep his privacy and the privacy of the others he is involved with. Gray even goes so far as to disguise the genders of the people he is talking about, refraining from using third-person pronouns in most of his songs and speaking of all unidentified persons using the third-person plural pronouns they and them. Conan could be speaking about non-binary individuals, but throughout the singer’s career, he has talked about multiple people using they/them. Since Gray’s breakthrough debut album Kid Krow, he has refused to label his sexuality. It’s ultimately nobody’s business and in the absence of details, his songs become about the listener’s experiences rather than a speculation about who Gray is singing about. The songs become universal because listeners see parallels in their lives. 

I WANNA DIE, BUT YOU KEEP ME ALIVE. There are a few details that Conan Gray shared about Found Heaven. In interviews, he talks about falling in love for the first time and then being broken up after stepping off the plane in London after flying across the Atlantic to be with that person. Later, as Conan was recording the album, he got sick with the flu. But the flu that he caught caused a chain reaction of health issues, including tonsillitis. The music video for “Killing Me” was even canceled because Gray had to have his tonsils removed. As he was sick, Conan was also heartbroken. He said of the third single: “I think we all have those people who don’t treat us nearly well enough, but we just can’t seem to let them go. People who call you at 2 [] AM, and who you know you shouldn’t pick up……but you do. ‘Killing Me’ is for when you’re on your last limb begging this person to just please stop torturing your heart.” Found Heaven feels like a weird moment in Conan Gray’s life, and in turn, a weird moment in his musical career. But we all get over our first loves, more or less. We fall in love again and break up. We get sick and feel better. Found Heaven is like a weird ‘80s movie you watch on TV when you have the flu and hallucinate a bit as you drift off to sleep. I don’t think this is where Gray will stay, but it was certainly a fun phase. Sadly, it came from the pain of the artist.

 

Read “Killing Me” by Conan Gray on Genius