Possessing a neo-folk aura, Grime’s fifth single (“We Appreciate Power” doesn’t count) from Miss_Anthropocene (leaving just five more left to hear on the record), “Delete Forever,” is a forlorn track. But then, how could it not be when the subject matter stems from the “inspiration” of the opioid crisis, and losing a number of friends to the addiction (you see, Billie Eilish? Grimes was experiencing the loss before you)? This is what Grimes explained of “Delete Forever” while promoting it on Zane Lowe, noting, “I’ve had quite a few friends pass away, in particular, one friend when I was eighteen passed away from complications related to opioid addiction. Artists keep dying so I wrote this song on the night Lil Peep died because I just got super triggered. Lil Peep and Juice WRLD were both artists I really liked. The artists it’s happening to specifically feels… a little too on the nose. I think [they were] people who in my opinion were best at expressing issues of mental health. So to have them die specifically just feels like a weird hopelessness.”
So it is that the melancholic production, rife with 90s-era guitar stylings (think Jewel meets Sheryl Crow), woefully underscores lyrics like, “Always down, I’m not up, guess it’s just my rotten luck/To fill my time with permanent gloom/But I can’t see above it, guess I fucking love it/But, oh, I didn’t mean to.” Expressing how being accustomed to pain and sorrow has turned into a source of comfort for her and, as such, would be almost more unpleasant to pull herself out of, Grimes manages to make the void of constant sadness sonically palpable.
With a video set against the backdrop of what looks like a Greek throne in space (“c”, as she likes to call herself, after all, did say she modeled the concept for the record after their lore, billing her alter ego as the goddess of climate change), a morose Grimes with her hair all fashioned like a solar system looks off into the distance in between looking right at us to lament, “I see everything, I see everything/Don’t you tell me now that I don’t want it/But I did everything, I did everything/White lines on a mirror, in a song.” Making Madonna in “Frozen”-esque gesticulations with her long acrylic nails (that Cardi B would still balk at), the camera slowly pans out (not unlike another Madonna video, “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”) to showcase giant red ribbons billowing against columns as Grimes remains committed to sitting stoically on her throne (this, too, smacks of Lana Del Rey in “Born to Die”). The simple construction of the song, especially in comparison to more typical Grimes offerings, including the other singles from Miss_Anthropocene, “Violence,” “4ÆM” and “My Name Is Dark,” makes it stand apart from much of her oeuvre. Perhaps the only thing “like” it on the album is “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth.” Yet even that is more chock full of production, awash in ominous synths and moody Hans Zimmer arrangements.
Concluding with violin and banjo instrumentation, the camera’s complete portrait of Grimes among the ruins is truly a sight to behold. Especially as a metaphor for drug addiction and the merciless loss it wreaks. To drive home that point, a subtle appearance of crashing aircrafts in the distance appear in the final moments. For Grimes does not want to paint a hopeful picture when there really isn’t one. One supposes this makes “Delete Forever” the most avant-garde D.A.R.E. commercial of all-time. While the 60s might have had its fair share of ODs on heroin, it was the 2010s that saw the highest ever rate of Americans overdosing as a result of the opioid epidemic. “Delete Forever” is perhaps a quiet anthem to commemorate this unprecedented new reality.
