My Favorite Lil Peep Song
Nothing relaxes me more after a long day...
On Music…
Every time I have a long day of work—interview cancellations, shitty news, struggles writing—I have one song I always play to ceremoniously signal the end of my frustration: Lil Peep and Lil Tracy’s “witchblades.” I first heard “witchblades” in a riverside park with my brother. He pulled out his phone and told me all his friends were raving over this one song, and from that very moment, I was shockingly smitten. Though “crybaby” is a perfect Lil Peep song, and though “hellboy” and “star shopping,” and “Benz Truck” might be Peep’s best work, “witchblades” is the song I find myself running towards every single day. “witchblades” is its own brand of perfection.
Lil Peep’s success came at the intersection of darkness and simplicity. The way he shouts through the “witchblades” beat makes this a perfect song to lose yourself within after a day of angst. In the months before I was properly medicated for Bipolar II, I would listen to “witchblades” in the dark of my old-old apartment, much to my roommate’s dismay, and find glimmers of hope in the way Peep appeared free on camera. “When I die, bury me with all my ice on” began to ring through my head as the days dragged on before my fateful meeting with my now-psych. It wasn’t about suicidal ideation, it was about the cheekiness of wanting to die and wanting to stunt, how those things can exist at once in an addled brain.
Medicated now, I still turn to “witchblades” because it not only reminds me of where I was, but it also shows me the importance of allowing a feeling to wash over you for the better. If you watch the video—as I have many, many times—you’ll see a Lil Peep so full of spirit, it’s difficult to place him within the context of the dour lyrics. You’ll see a Lil Tracy entranced by his own words. You’ll see two artists at the peak of their powers, and you’ll realize there’s so much to live for. Perhaps this really is just a song about cocaine freezing your veins and caskets filled with riches, but to me, too, it is a song about living through struggle with a smile on your face.
“witchblades” is not eons from Lil Peep’s most affecting music, either. “Life Is Beautiful,” from the posthumous Come Over When You’re Sober, Part 2, another classic Peep song, is all about survival in the face of very real hardships.
As Craig Jenkins wrote back when COWYS2 released, “‘Life Is Beautiful,’ the album’s centerpiece, is a word about persevering through terrible circumstances. The duality in the lyric, a series of snapshots of people living through hard hits like illness and bereavement, is the core thrust of Lil Peep’s music: Feelings suck because they’re uncontrollable and unpredictable, but the never-ending push and pull in our hearts and our heads is the meat of human existence.”
Too, “witchblades,” strikes at that “meat of human existence.” It’s not a song about screaming away the pain, so much as it’s a song about sneering in the face of anguish. It’s absurdist in nature, but perfectly constructed. “witchblades” rocks your depression, if only for a moment, because you find yourself in a world eager to understand you. There’s an element of acceptance to the fiber of “witchblades,” how Peep and Tracy hear and project a particular kind of sadness-and-anger cocktail. “witchblades” allows you to vent without feeling like a burden—though you’re never a burden—and it allows you to have your catharsis with a smile. It’s a storm of pained perfection in a bottle.
I write this all while sipping tea out of my hand-painted GothBoiClique mug. I painted it myself. Over here, it’s still “Gothboiclique ‘til my soul take.” I wouldn’t have it any other way.