Unlike, say, Cardi B, who also experienced (and is experiencing) a “young” “with child” phase, Halsey opted to really say something (apart from, you know, “Yeah, you fuckin’ with some wet ass pussy”) with the revelation not only of her pregnancy, but of the act of actually creating life and the mind fuck that can wreak on a person. Contrary to the expected reaction of her treating it as a solely “mystical” experience, Halsey has been candid in addressing the fact that pregnancy has many body horror connotations. Thus, she stated of the record that it’s “a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth.” In addition to the idea of reclaiming her own body not just from the spawn that was inside of it, but from the public as well.
Produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the heavy industrial sound of If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is present throughout. In many ways, Halsey foreshadowed the sound that appears on this record with the single, “Experiment On Me” from the Birds of Prey Soundtrack. Elements of PJ Harvey, Annie Lennox, The Cranberries and Alanis Morissette’s style imbue the dramatic opening track, “The Tradition.” Taking us to a medieval-esque time period with the sound and lyrics (meant to complement the film with according visuals), Halsey paints a picture that one actually can’t help but immediately associate with Britney Spears as she says, “Oh, the loneliest girl in town/Is bought for pennies a price/We dress her up in lovely gowns/She’s easy on the eyes/Her soul is black and it’s a fact/That her sneer will eat you alive/And the buyer always brings her back/Because all she does is cry.” Would that Jamie Spears really did decide to “bring her back.”
Harkening to a time when women were sold more literally, Halsey’s chorus is a declaration of what every woman must do to claim her power, singing, “So take what you want, take what you can/Take what you please, don’t give a damn/Ask for forgiveness, never permission/It’s in the blood and this is tradition.” That last line seeming to be a sardonic nod to the idea that female oppression is passed from generation to generation, the tradition always being to buck against male dominance designed solely to keep a woman down by restricting her. Whether this means from education, from reproductive rights, from freedom in general, there’s no denying that females past and present have constantly had to fight the system rigged for them to fail (or, at the very least, be mediocre).
An accompanying film (think Beyoncé’s Lemonade—but Halsey is calling it a “film experience” rather than a “visual album”) to highlight the ongoing institution of patriarchy offers a trailer that summarizes that it’s “about the lifelong social labyrinth of sexuality and birth. The greatest horror stories never told were buried with the bodies of those who died in that labyrinth…” And are still dying, just look over at the women in Afghanistan if you need something like “proof.” At one point, the voice of a man can be heard saying, “This woman will not go quietly.” And that’s one of the chief points Halsey wants to make with this record. The more people (specifically, men—but there are female misogynists as well [called Republicans]) try to suppress and subjugate women, the more they’re going to fight back, to keep kicking and screaming until they’re finally heard. Unfortunately, it seems as though they’re still “required” to do this so many centuries later. Which is why Halsey pointedly sets the narrative in these “Marie Antoinette-inspired” environs and aesthetics. Antoinette herself actually being a scapegoat of a queen for the public to tar and feather for her husband’s financial sins that far outshined her own.
Described as, “An hour-long film experience set to the music of Halsey’s upcoming album, [it] introduces a young pregnant queen, Lila, as she wrestles with the manipulative chokehold of love to ultimately discover that the ability to create life (and end it) unlocks the paranormal power within her.” Sounds like she might risk the inevitable cries of, “Burn the witch!” at that rate.
“Bells in Santa Fe” continues the mystical aura of the musical landscape established by “The Tradition” as Halsey asks us to do the exact opposite of what Lil Nas X did with: “Don’t call me by my name.” And why? Well, because “all of this is temporary.” So why bother with such “civilized” formalities? Alluding to something she does in the If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power film, Halsey describes, “Well, maybe I could hold you in the dark/You won’t even notice me depart/Secondhand thread in a secondhand bed/With a second man’s head/Leavin’ through the door without a word/You won’t even notice, little bird/Better off dead, so I reckon I’m headed to Hell instead.” Where all women are condemned to go, n’est-ce pas? For all their many “infractions,” doomed by the patriarchy to forever commit the sin of being human. Of not fitting into the “necessary” (by male standards) mold of a Madonna or a whore.
That’s why Halsey urges, “So don’t wait for me, don’t wait for me, wait-ah/It’s not a happy ending.” Referring to one of the most respected patriarchal “templates” of all-time, Halsey also wields the Bible by way of cleverly referring to Jesus’ resurrection after three days via the lyrics, “Jesus needed a three-day weekend/To sort out all his bullshit, figure out the treason.” Halsey as Lila, too, must also figure out the treason that’s been happening around her—apart from just the garden variety chauvinism. Using his name for the purpose of metaphor again, Halsey adds of the temptation for women to be treated like shit by men, “Jesus, you’ve got better lips than Judas/I could keep your bed warm, otherwise, I’m useless/I don’t really mean it ‘cause who the fuck would choose this?” Referring to how women are seen as little more than walking (or lying) orifices designed for men’s pleasure, Halsey asks why anyone would want such a fate. That is, unless they somehow managed to alter their perception in men’s eyes. This album feels like a major attempt to do that. Even if it does end up falling on deaf male ears.
A moody, increasingly aggressive sonic conclusion leads in seamlessly (think: the transition from “NDA” to “Therefore I Am”) to “Easier Than Lying.” Uptempo and rhythmic, a slow build to the outburst we can feel coming is preceded by Halsey reservedly stating, “I’m only whatever you make me/And you make me more and more a villain every day.” An undeniable memorialization of the fact that men render women as “villains” (often substituted with the words “bitch” and/or “slut”) when they don’t fit into the “right” mold or they act “out of line,” Halsey then warns, “But you don’t know, you reap, you sow/Whatever you give to me, from yourself, you take/Well, if you’re a hater, then hate the creator/It’s in your image I’m made.” Flipping the script subversively on the old adage about how man was made in God’s image, and woman, subsequently, “created” from Adam’s rib, Halsey taunts with this line that snarkily demands that a male detractor look at himself in the mirror before casting blame or contempt on any woman. That is, if he wants so badly to believe he’s “top dog” on this Earth.
The chorus then bursts forth in a crescendoing bout of rage that, in truth, sounds like what Miley Cyrus was really trying achieve on her Rock®™ album, Plastic Hearts. Halsey wails, “One eye open and one eye closed/‘Cause I’ll hang myself if you give me rope/I lost all my faith and lost all hope/That everything means anything at all/One eye broken and one eye bruised/‘Cause I gave myself away for you.” Speaking to how so many women, no matter how hard they try to avoid it, end up sacrificing too much of themselves in order to “bend” to the “needs” of their male “partner” (an undesirable word that also entails “equals”), Halsey further decries, “You liar, you don’t love me too/It’s easy for you after all/My heart is massive, but it’s empty/A permanent part of me, that innocent artery/Is gaspin’ for some real attention.” And, as we all know, most men’s attention span can barely get through a porno clip before moving on to something else, let alone staying focused long enough to deliver “real” attention to a real woman (meaning, for starters, one that’s not on a screen). She finally has to conclude, like Selena Gomez did on “Lose You to Love Me,” “Losing you is easier than/Lying to myself that you love me.”
What concept album about birth and sexuality would be complete without a song called “Lilith?” As the true “first woman” to be at Adam’s side (a.k.a. his “first wife”) before apparently she was deemed too “uppity” (read: independent) and Adam opted for the supposedly more docile Eve—who turned out to be even more buck wild, actually—Lilith represents so much about the “female story.” No matter from what class or background, for a woman must always contend with the potential accusation/rebranding of being called a “she-demon” when she doesn’t “behave” herself in a man’s eyes. As though speaking from the perspective of Lilith about Adam, Halsey sings, “Now, I’m wonderin’ if I ever wanted to hold you/It never mattered if I owned you/‘Cause you’d let anybody with a body control you.” In other words, Adam, like all men, is easily manipulated by the punani. Alternately, a subtext meaning can be applied to Halsey’s newborn child itself, with babies being so helpless and easily adaptable to any “nurturing” pair of arms. This idea extends into Halsey exploring how it’s not all necessarily sunshine and roses to be a new mother, and here, too, one thinks of Britney Spears and the postpartum depression she was never permitted the luxury of acknowledging because of the times she lived in and the microscope she was under.
As Halsey notes, “The more that you give away/The more that you have/The more that you give away/The more that you have, the more that they take.” This couldn’t apply more to what happens to women—expected to be the constant “givers” in any dynamic, particularly ones with their child and romantic interest (a secondary child all too often). That men constantly berate women if they become too “vocal” (a.k.a. cunty) is reiterated when Halsey explains, “You got me feelin’ like I been too mean/And everything that I say, I believe.” On the defense as a result of perpetual criticism for her merely engaging in the male-expected privilege of expressing herself, she then, in her Lilith guise, declares, “Tuck a knife with my heart up my sleeve/And fuck like a demon, do it like nothin’/I am disgustin’/I’ve been corrupted/And by now, I don’t need no help to be destructive.” For once a woman is “fallen,” there’s no turning back for her, right? Might as well go deeper down the rabbit hole to hell.
This brings us to the notion of powerful women being those who are “dangerous” because they’re “fresh out of fucks forever”—often meaning they have no concern about male opinions of who they are (gasp!). Hence, Halsey adopts the by now classic feminist phrase, “A girl is a gun” for herself on the next track, “Girl Is A Gun.” The origins of the phrase can be attributed to, ironically, misogynistic French New Wave cinema (excluding the work of Agnès Varda), first with the D.W. Griffith (yes, adding further to the misogyny with racism) aphorism popularized by Jean-Luc Godard in the 60s when he said, “All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun” and then Luc Moullet’s 1971 movie, Une aventure de Billy le Kid/A Girl is A Gun. For anyone who was curious, it was Griffith who originally said, “I foresee no possibility of venturing into themes showing a closer view of reality for a long time to come. The public itself will not have it. What it wants is a gun and a girl.” Anything but Birth of a Nation, in effect.
Delving further into the taboo topic of how having a child isn’t exactly “hunky-dory,” Halsey freely admits, “My newest baby’s testin’ me lately/Makin’ me crazy from mornin’ to evenin’/I cannot take it, I love it, I break it.” Conceding that, in the past, she’s been prone to “leave it if I believe it’s a waste of my/Time is a blessin’, to me, it’s a lesson/And I can’t be stressin’ to give you attention,” her child is the first being she isn’t really “allowed” to just leave or give up on. Well, she could, but child abandonment has yet to be a chic celebrity cause (sigh). She then applies her logic to her romantic object of affection with the lines, “‘Cause, oh, it’s never enough, so I’m givin’ you up/And you’ll be better with a nice girl, darlin’.” Who knows if this was the precise “speech” she gave to her baby daddy, “screenwriter” Alev Aydin? But if it was, it didn’t seem to work.
One of the most gut-wrenching tracks on the record, “You Asked For This,” plays on the rather foul phrase (worse still, a phrase frequently wielded by fathers), “Be a big girl” and do this. Because “you’re a big girl now.” Of course, no one ever says anything about being a “big boy.” Or if they do, it’s certainly not with the same frequency. The expectation of girls to grow up quickly and “act mature” is part of why we have so many Lolita identity crises on our hands. The over-promotion of a girl growing up too fast is part of what makes her feel the pressure to be sexualized too soon. Halsey, in her unwitting bid to outdo Billie Eilish’s “blockbuster” summer album, Happier Than Ever, also uses a similar phrase as Eilish on “everything i wanted,” when she sings, “They called me weak/Like I’m not just somebody’s daughter.” On this song, Halsey phrases it as, “You know I’m still somebody’s daughter, see.” She then bittersweetly and sarcastically mimics the male voice in her head telling her, “Go on and be a big girl/You asked for this now/Go on and be a big girl/Or everybody’s gonna drown you out.”
“Darling” is a more stripped down, acoustic number that finds Halsey singing a gentle lullaby to her newborn. In the vein of Madonna’s “Dear Jessie” or “Little Star,” Halsey sings in a sort of Ellie Goulding lilt as she assures, “Until it’s time to see the light/I’ll make my own with you each night/I’ll kidnap all the stars and I will keep them in your eyes/I’ll wrap them up in velvet twine/And hang ’em from a fishin’ line/So I can see them anytime I like.” And there you have it, a new song for millennials and Gen Zers to sing to their future children instead of something like “Hush, Little Baby.”
While a lot of people like to commemorate their children’s birthday, “1121” is instead the date (November 21st) that Halsey found out she was pregnant. After all, that was the day she knew things would never be the same again. That the life she once knew was over. And maybe it was right at this time that the ideas of being “day old bread” as far as society is concerned started swirling in her mind. For, as Halsey points out, we’re indoctrinated to believe that a woman who becomes a mother is no longer sexually desirable (regardless of that once popular term, “MILF”). Just another symptom of the Madonna/whore complex. Maybe that’s why the aural landscape of this particular song is particularly dark and dramatic. In addition to calling out some very specific and not often enough discussed issues about the increased form of body dysmorphia that takes hold when a woman becomes pregnant. Which is why Halsey remarks of her new form, “The parts of myself that I’ve hated/And I can’t tell which ones are mine/And which I created.” Losing track of herself physically and emotionally to another being, it’s the first time she’s done so for a human that she’s “generated,” as opposed to some cad of a man.
Seeming to address her unborn child, she announces, “I won’t die for love/But ever since I met you/You could have my heart/And I would break it for you.” During the bridge, she returns to the idea of shape, the word doubling in meaning for her physical and psychological state while she urges, “Please don’t leave (I’m runnin’ out of time to tell you)/Don’t leave me in the shape you left me (I’m runnin’ out of things that I regret).”
This leads into the upbeat “Honey.” At times reminding one of Miley Cyrus’ “Angels Like You” in terms of lyrical motif, Halsey croons, “She was sweet like honey/But all I can taste is the blood in my mouth/And the bitterness in goodbyе.” As the only song to spotlight Halsey’s bisexuality, it leads one to believe maybe there was a specific girl to turn her back on to dick at the moment. Describing the sort of “wild child” Lana Del Rey did on “Carmen,” Halsey adds to her description, “Drippin’ like honey/Down the back of my throat and on thе front of my mind/And well, she’s impatient and I’m complacent/With just a little taste of wastin’ time/Lookin’ for honey/Well, she stings like she means it, she’s mean and she’s mine.” For now, anyway. Because even if they did stay together, there will always be the “Whispers” in the back of Halsey’s mind. The song of the same name detailing all the insecurity that can rage inside a person’s head. Especially when that head is known for having mental illness as Halsey’s does. Her sentiment about sabotaging everything that might be good for her, including love, the track bears similarities to Bebe Rexha’s single, “Sabotage,” from her Better Mistakes album.
As the song’s title suggest, “Whispers” is filled with them—the “little voices” that amount to a very big one when they’re played on repeat all day. Toying with your emotions, rattling your self-esteem, there’s no escape from whispers of, “You do not want this.” As Halsey explains, “This is the voice in your head.” The one “that says, ‘You do not want him’/This is that space in your bed that says, ‘Bet I could fuck him.’” Promiscuity being, as many know, a way in which women can try to seek a form of love that isn’t really there, fill a void for the small amount of time it takes for a man to orgasm. Halsey encapsulates the uncontrollable nature of her bipolar disorder (and insecurity in general) when she says, “I’ve got a monster inside me that eats personality types/She’s constantly changin’ her mind on the daily/Think that she hates me, I’m feelin’ it lately.” What with all the hormonal roller coasters that occur during and after pregnancy.
But one thing she’s also been feeling lately is her power. Paralleling Britney Spears’ “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” and Ariana Grande’s “God Is A Woman” in terms of its title, “I Am Not A Woman, I’m A God” evokes that sovereign attitude. As the lead single, it also continues the motif of polarity and extremes that appeared on “Whispers” (and throughout the entire record thus far). Halsey’s use of the pronoun “they” is about more than just gender preference it seems, for they really are more than just one person (like every woman who can’t be hemmed in by the conventions patriarchal society demands of her). Chanting the chorus with near diabolical fervor, Halsey insists on the dichotomies, “I am not a woman, I’m a god/I am not a martyr, I’m a problem/I am not a legend, I’m a fraud.” Bespeaking the complexities of a woman, as well as the constant need men have to raise her up on a pedestal only to delight in tearing her down for not measuring up to impossible standards, Halsey additionally alludes to the concept that women are gods for their ability to create life as she just did.
The slower-paced, more rock-tinged “The Lighthouse” finds Halsey languidly musing from the perspective of a siren, “There is a lighthouse in the middle of the deep end/And I’ll lure you like a landslide/And I’ll show you lovely things/If you rescue me…” Once again turning misogynistic conventions of ancient myths like these on its ear, Halsey illustrates the delight the siren takes in toppling the sailor—presuming her to be weak and in need of saving—with her charms that turn out to be lethal. So it is that she details the sailor’s fate with, “But a sailor ain’t a savior ‘cause they only tell you lies/So I left him there ’til the sunrise/Well, the waves were tall and they were crashin’ down/He’s layin’ in the water, begging God to let him drown/So I showed him all my teeth and then I laughed out loud/‘Cause I never wanted savin’, I just wanted to be found.” That she was. And upon being “discovered,” she shows this man—and all men like him—just who she can be.
The final song on the standard edition is “Ya’aburnee,” meaning, loosely, “you bury me.” A sentiment that concedes Halsey’s desire to die before her loved one (whether her child or her significant other) so she never has to experience the pain of that loss. Of course, the more selfless thing to do would be to wish she was the one to die first so that her object of affection wouldn’t know the pain instead. But like they say, it’s a selfish generation. Offering up some of her most poetic lyrics yet, Halsey sings, “I get undertones of sadness/When I think about the moments/That I never got to spend with you,” later adding, “I think we could live forever in each other’s faces ’cause I’ll always see my youth in you.” That’s one reason to want to be the person who goes first—lest Halsey lose her fountain of youth mirror.
On the deluxe edition of If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, “People Disappear Here” follows. Its moody 90s-ness is a prime example of Trent Reznor’s influence, with Halsey’s earnest vocals lamenting, “I hurt myself to make sure I exist/I pinch myself to make sure that I’m real/I hurt myself to make sure I exist/I need someone to tell me how I feel.” What’s more, “disappear here” as it applies to the Bret Easton Ellis epigram seems at play (whether intentional or not) being that Halsey not only mentions California, but also, taking a page from, as previously mentioned, the Billie Eilish playbook of song composition, she used the inspiration from her bout with sleep paralysis while back in the state during quarantine. As she noted, “The characters are all inspired by figures that occurred in a series of sleep paralysis nightmares I had at home during the quarantine. After seven years of bed surfing hotel rooms around the world, adjusting to my own pitch-black cave in California had a little bit of a learning curve.” Well shit, seems like these days you have to have sleep paralysis and synesthesia to be a standout musician.
The final song is “Nightmare,” a reprise of Halsey’s hit 2019 track that ties in seamlessly with the feminist war cry overtones of the record. Announcing in the chorus, “I keep a record of the wreckage of my life,” what Halsey has done on If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is pick up the pieces of that wreckage to document it anew for every woman, clearly choosing love while also maintaining her power. In short, having her cake and eating it too—as women are so often told they cannot. But here Halsey is declaring, “Let them eat cake” with an entirely different meaning.
