Cruz Beckham
About This Track
'Control' personifies Halsey's bipolar disorder, a condition she has discussed openly since her teenage diagnosis. The track appears as the ninth song on the standard edition of 'BADLANDS', released in 2015, and Halsey later noted it as the most emotionally difficult song she had written at that point. The question 'Who is in control?' recurs through the chorus, framed by the voice of someone grappling with the unpredictable energy of a diseased mind.
The lyrics move through imagery of shadows, monsters, mirrors turned to the wall, and villains that live in the speaker's bed and head. Halsey writes, 'I'm bigger than my body / I'm colder than this home / I'm meaner than my demons', a litany of assertions that reads like an attempt to outpace the disorder itself. The villains beg to be written down so they will never die, a compact between the artist and the intrusive thoughts that demand documentation.
The chorus adopts the perspective of onlookers alarmed by the speaker's intensity: 'Please, stop, you're scaring me'. Halsey answers with defiance rather than reassurance, insisting the fear is justified. The song holds the tension between self-awareness and the loss of agency, a portrait of mental illness rendered without euphemism.
"Control" is a track by Halsey, from the album BADLANDS, released 27th August 2015. The track is 3:35 long. It's filed under Alternative. Full lyrics are available below. Dork has published 15 articles about Halsey.
About the Artist
Lyrics
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