Demi Lovato Calls Lyrics From Her Grammys Performance Song 'A Cry For Help'
Demi Lovato opens up about the song she wrote just days before her overdose
Demi Lovato is set to make her triumphant return to the stage at this Sunday’s Grammy Awards, making this her first performance since her relapse and heroin overdose in July of 2018, and in a new interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1, Lovato confirmed that she’ll be performing her new song “Anyone,” a song she wrote just days before her overdose with lyrics so vulnerable that she can’t believe no one at the time realized that the song was “a cry for help.”
“I almost listen back and hear these lyrics as a cry for help,” Lovato said of “Anyone.” “And you kind of listen back to it and you kind of think, how did nobody listen to this song and think, ‘Let’s help this girl?'”
“I was recording it in a state of mind where I felt I was okay, but clearly I wasn’t,” Lovato added. “I was in denial, but a part of me knew what I was singing for.”
Our hearts break for Demi, who said that she wishes she “could go back in time and help that version of myself,” while adding that when she was in the hospital, she knew this would be her comeback song.
“I was singing this song and I didn’t realize these lyrics were so emotional and heavy until after the fact,” Lovato said. “I remember being in the hospital and listening to this song…and thinking, ‘If there’s ever a moment where I get to come back from this, I want to sing this song.'”
Demi then got real about how the song was telling her something about herself that she wasn’t quite ready to see at the time, but that musical therapy can only do so much.
“I feel like you can use things to cope in life, and music has been a huge coping mechanism for me, but there’s only so much music can do before you have to take the initiative to get the help you need.”
Lovato also revealed that it’s taken her a long time to get to a place to be able to stand on a stage, in front of her peers and the world, and perform a song that is as vulnerable as this one. Here’s to Demi and her courageous next step. We’ll be watching.
