Justin Bieber has teamed up with Benny Blanco and Finneas for his new single Lonely. We’ve seen Bieber grow up right in front of our eyes and deal with everything that fame has to offer, good and bad, from an early age.
In “Lonely”, Justin shares with us just how hard it was for him to grow up under the spotlight.
Justin Bieber & Benny Blanco – Lonely Music Video
Stars often talk about the bad sides of being famous – losing privacy, always being judged, and never having a break. However, hardly anyone with a 9-5 job can take them seriously, even though behind fame, luxury, and glory, there’s a sad truth. What we see online is almost always the sugar-coated side of stardom, but what’s behind the screen and when the lights go out is the actual reality.
Justin Bieber took it to Instagram to explain just how hard it was for him to grow up as a pop star and sing about it in his latest single. He says: When he (Benny Blanco) and @finneas showed me this song, to be honest, it was hard to listen to considering how tough it was to get through some of these chapters.
The Dark Side of Childhood Stardom
Justin Bieber has been under the spotlight for most of his life. The world loved him, the world hated him, the world judged him, but hardly anyone treated him like the kid that he was. In “Lonely”, Bieber shares the dark reality of childhood stars, and just how lonely it can get when you have everything. Stick with me and find out a more detailed meaning behind Bieber’s new single.
In 2009, when he was only 15 years old, Justin Bieber released his first EP titled My World, and in 2010 his first album – My World 2.0. Both of these took the world by storm and turned the young boy’s life upside down. It comes as no surprise that the sudden changes and worldwide fame affected Bieber’s mental health, which he reflects on in Lonely.
Shaped by Opinion and Expectations
Everybody knows my name now
But somethin’ ’bout it still feels strange
Like lookin’ in a mirror, tryna steady yourself
And seein’ somebody else
Waking up and suddenly being known all over the world is something hardly anyone could get used to, especially at such a young age. In “Lonely”, Justin Bieber admits to feeling like he’s living someone else’s life. He looks in the mirror, but he cannot recognize the boy looking back at him. While teenage years are usually a period where everyone starts shaping into a person they want to become, Bieber’s teenage years were highly influenced by everyone else’s opinion and expectations of him. Because of that, the singer felt like he was someone else and not who he remembered to be.
Maybe when I’m older, it’ll all calm down
But it’s killin’ me now
The first part of the song is written from young Bieber’s point of view. 15-year-old Justin was aware of how much his life has changed, and the impact his fame had on the people around him. Since his rise to stardom was not a gradual one, it must have felt like a storm which he had no control over. Although it was hard for him to get used to such changes, he put all his hope in the future and the possible peace it will bring. Bieber had probably got used to it by now, but the fact that it is still hard for him to talk about his childhood fame shows us that it still affects him to this day.
Seeing Past the Shallowness
What if you had it all
But nobody to call?
Maybe then you’d know me
‘Cause I’ve had everything
But no one’s listening
In the eyes of the world, Justin Bieber had everything – money, fame, girls, luxury – you name it. However, if we see past the shallowness of such a lifestyle, what did he really have? Teenage years are hard and turbulent on their own, and we can’t even imagine how hard they can get when the eyes of the whole world are on you. Fake friendships, fake relationships, trust issues, and being alone when the lights go off, that’s the price you have to pay for worldwide fame.
The Blindness of the World
Everybody knows my past now
Like my house was always made of glass
Bieber’s life was never an easy one. His parents divorced when he was really young and he was raised by a single mother. He sang in the streets to help her, and she was the only support he had when record labels started reaching out to him. When his fame sky-rocketed, the world knew everything about him. Bieber feels like his house was always made of glass
because ever since he was a young boy, he lived his life feeling like the whole world is watching his every move.
And everybody saw me sick
And it felt like no one gave a s***
They criticized the things I did as an idiot kid
Although he was constantly watched by the whole world, it felt like everyone saw what they wanted to see, not what was really happening in front of them. The singer was suffering, mentally and physically, while the whole world was watching. Now it almost feels like everyone watched him only to criticize his every move.
We all make mistakes, especially at a young age, and it is often that those mistakes are what helps us grow and learn. The only difference between us and a childhood pop star is that our mistakes are ours only, while his mistakes were always there for the whole world to judge and remember.
Although most of us will never know what it is like to live a life of a world-famous pop star, that is exactly why we should at least try to understand it. There are bad sides to everything, especially childhood fame. In “Lonely”, Justin Bieber, together with Benny Blanco and Finneas, shows us that his life was never perfect, no matter how hard the world tried to make it as such.
