BADLANDS [halsey] // Lyric Analysis

4. Drive

"Drive" touches on a love that lives within boundaries. The lovers keep their relationship distinct – careful not to make the first move, yet inevitably enjoying each other's presence and silently yearning for more.

The lyrics leaked when fans took advantage of their early-listening privileges during Halsey's VIP for the Smoke And Mirrors Tour the  where she supported Imagine Dragons.

Halsey described it as "The music baby of me and Timmy-The-Terror AKA the Master-Mind behind  [...] sad vibey heat."

It took her ten minutes to write this song, and talked about her song writing with Interview Magazine saying, "It usually takes me 20 to 90 minutes to write a song because once I start, I don't stop. [...] I like when it's really organic, so I try to knock it out in one shot. Some of these songs on the new record just kind of spilled out of me and those are the ones I keep. The ones that people are pulling apart and saying, "You should do this and you should do that", those songs never make the record because they're not real."

MUSIC INTRO:

[Car sensor \ Slight wind]

Before H starts singing we can hear the bip-ing noise of the car detector, the car keys, throwing from the very first instant the listener in the car she's in, to follow her during this trip.

The car wheels booming like in an illegal car race. The speed of her journey, of their relationship, goes so fast and she starts telling about it right in the moment when they crash.

VERSE 1:

"My hands wrapped around your stick shift /
Swerving on the 405, I can never keep my eyes off this"

Interstate-405 or "the 405" is a Californian highway. A long distance from Bed Stuy (town she mentions in "Hurricane"), the place where she has driven from, since  and "belongs to no city". The stick shift gives a vintage Americana vibe to this road trip.

She swerves on the road, but her eyes are more focused on her lover, as implied by the following lyric.

"My neck, the feeling of your soft lips /
Illuminated in the light, bouncing off the exit signs I missed"

Her lover's lips cause her to miss the exit routes they needed to take, both because she's concentrated at staring at them and thinking about the gentle touches he's given to her.

This doubles as a metaphor, becoming distracted by the present can cause you to lose the focus of the future. The streetlights shine the way to their destination, but she's too infatuated by their kisses.

CHORUS:

"All we do is drive /
All we do is think about the feelings that we hide /
All we do is sit in silence waiting for a sign /
Sick and full of pride /
All we do is drive"

Both Halsey and her lover know they have feelings for one another and are sick of concealing it, but remain afraid of humility and avoid being the first to make a move. They sit in the silence, Neither will further their relationship until they encounter an indicator giving them the green light to do so.

A sign could derive from a higher power –which is often in Halsey's songs– or as they were mentioned in the first verse, to have been exit signs on the highway.