How Could You: A Song About Inevitable Loss
- Skill
- Jan 28
- 3 min read
The date is the 28th of April 2024, two days before my birthday, and I'm about to submit my PhD thesis. I had been wrestling a heartbreak that hadn't taken place yet... the inevitable loss. A slow and somewhat quiet heartbreak. One of those "feeling the cracks long before anything actually breaks" - and still, when it does, it hurts as if you didn't see it coming.
"How Could You" was written from that space: the pain in-between where love starts to fade and no one wants to say it out loud.
Stream "How Could You" Here
The Weight of Self-Blame
A central theme of this song, I explore what it feels like to question your own role in the collapse of a relationship. Not to point fingers either, more like an introspection of my role in it. I contemplate whether I smothered the flame, whether my partnership did more harm than good? It's not just "you left me" either, more like maybe a "did my past sins push you away"?
Lines like:
"With me around, your flame I'm smothering” and "Demons of my making"
The high-pitched sample and lyrics as my canvas, I was trying to paint a portrait of myself owning the hurt that I may have caused, even if it wasn't intentional.
A Relationship That Was Always Slipping
"How Could You" describes how love sometimes has a slow fade. I didn't want to make it seem explosive, so I opted for a somewhat chilled boom-bap feel. A love that's already begun to die long before the goodbye. That inevitability is reflected in:
"This breakup I did rehearse” and "Both wondering are we both cursed"
There's almost a haunting resignation to my lyrics like the end was coming and both parties can see it but hoped we're both wrong.... (idiots lol).
Timestamping and Immortalising
My friend Kitty (Kitlone by request) said "once you put thoughts to art, you immortalise them." I added some specific but small facts to the song, partially so I remember where my head was at and to put a timestamp to these feelings: "In the EU with all the sass besides me" and "Deep breaths on the 28th"
I didn't want it all to be clad in indirect expression but linked to real memories. To attach it to emotional detail to convey a more personal heartbreak. I've almost anchored the grief to a moment, but it also emphasises that I'm looking backwards, even though I wrote this on the 28 April 2024.
Attachment, Fear, and Letting Go
The song plays between anxious and avoidant patterns. The fears of abandonment are there, while I avoid being too much, I open up, then pull away again. The chorus repeats the same question: "How could you let me go?"
But I'm trying to emphasize that it's not about the answer. It's all about stewing in the ache of being let go. They used to call me the Heartache Don after all.
Final Thoughts
"How Could You" isn't about being angry. It's about being human - flawed, loving too much or not enough, learning how to grieve and accept when someone's gone... and trying to forgive them and yourself.
If you've ever carried the guilt of a love lost, then you may relate to this one.
Stream "How Could You" Here
Until next time,
Skill
Comments