"Delete Forever" is a single recorded by Canadian musician

Grimes Claire Elise Boucher (; born March 17, 1988), known professionally as Grimes, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Her early work has been described as extending from "lo-fi R&B" to futuristic dance-pop, and has in ...

. It was released on February 12, 2020, under the label 4AD as the fifth and final single off of her fifth studio album, ''

Miss Anthropocene ''Miss Anthropocene'' is the fifth studio album by Canadian musician Grimes, released on February 21, 2020. It marked her first album in over four years, since she released ''Art Angels''. It was officially announced on March 19, 2019. The album ...

''. The song is a

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...

Britpop Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. It produced brighter, catchier alternative rock, partly in reaction to the popularity of the darker lyrical themes of the US-led grunge music and to the ...

, and

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

composition.

Background

In an interview with Zane Lowe for

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple M ...

's Beats 1, Grimes revealed that "Delete Forever" was written on the night of American rapper

Lil Peep Gustav Elijah Åhr (November 1, 1996 – November 15, 2017), known professionally as Lil Peep, was an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He was a member of the emo rap collective GothBoiClique. Helping pioneer an emo revival-style of Rapp ...

's death, while its lyrics were inspired by the death of the singer's friends due to

opioid Opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects. Medically they are primarily used for pain relief, including anesthesia. Other medical uses include suppression of diarrhea, replacement therapy for opioid us ...

addiction.

Composition

"Delete Forever" is an "earnest and heartbreaking" and "folkily melodic" acoustic ballad, which employs a banjo, strings, "incredibly clean" acoustic guitar, electronic drums and bass. In an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music's Beats 1, Grimes described "Delete Forever" as a "pretty bummer song ..about the

opioid epidemic The opioid epidemic, also referred to as the opioid crisis, is the rapid increase in the overuse, misuse/abuse, and overdose deaths attributed either in part or in whole to the class of drugs opiates/opioids since the 1990s. It includes the sign ...

". Sonically, the record "incorporates

, and

Music video

On February 12, 2020, the song's music video premiered on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. It depicts the singer in "brightly-colored pigtails and ethereal makeup" playing "a queen looking over her crumbling empire". Grimes revealed that the video was based on the fourth volume of the Japanese cyberpunk

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

'' Akira'', while its setting was created in a

3D modelling In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of any surface (mathematics), surface of an object (inanimate or living) in Three-dimensional space, three dimensions via 3D comput ...

program.

Charts

References

{{authority control Grimes songs 2020 songs 2020 singles 4AD singles Songs about drugs Songs about heroin Commemoration songs