Alyssa VanPelt-Cathcart, Staff Writer
Halsey, a popular music artist within the United States released her album, The Great Impersonator, on October 25th, 2024. There is so much emotion within this album for Halsey and fans as Halsey struggles with her own health.
According to The Rolling Stone, Halsey was “first diagnosed with Lupus SLE and then a rare T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder. Both of which are currently being managed or in remission; and both of which she will likely have for the duration of her life.” According to the Lupus Foundation of America, “Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the most common form of lupus — it’s the type that 7 in 10 people with lupus have. It’s what most people mean when they say ‘lupus.’” Finally, according to The Rolling Stones, “In time with the release of “The End,” Halsey donated to both the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Lupus Research Alliance.”
When listening to the album, there is a lot of sorrow in the song “Only Living Girl in LA”. In “Only Living Girl in LA,” she sings, “The world keeps spinning without me. I told my mother I would die by twenty-seven and in a way, I sort of did.” This painfully speaks to the way she lost herself at twenty-seven when she received her diagnosis of Lupus SLE. Halsey continues in the song, “And they’d be right, because quite frankly, to be alive, it shouldn’t kill me every day, the way it does. I don’t know what I did to have this fate, I’m drenched in it, and I can’t even run from what I know.” The frightening lack of control over one’s health and the future are not easy to overcome, or to articulate into a song. However, it is in this “Only Living Girl in LA” that Halsey successfully depicts the pain of Lupus SLE.
The album shifts to anger in the track “Dog Years.” The first verse builds up in intensity as she explains that she is a universal blood type, but she can only receive from her specific type. She becomes more frustrated as she is “trying to be positive.” In the second verse, she shares the tragedy of losing a pet, “’Causе my dog died last year. He fell asleep in my embrace and the very last thing I told him was, “See you soon and we can race.” You know a mercy kill is what I seek. I didn’t ask to live, but dying’s up to me.” This is another reference to her pain of Lupus SLE with the struggle of treatment and recovery. When told she is in a better place now that she is healthier, she becomes frustrated because she is no longer where she was. She sings, “Tell the three people who asked that I am in a better place with lots of trees and lots of grass and lots of, lots of chocolate cake. ‘Cause I’m not old, but I am tired. I’m not strong, I’m very weak.” The whole album is a memorial to her health, where she has climbed out of, and where she plans to go now.
Halsey, who is now thirty years old, has gone through such a life-changing health scare. It feels like such an honor to have her music return and with such vigor. There is much hope for a continued successful career for Halsey. Many positive thoughts will be out to Halsey and everyone else who has suffered through their physical or mental health.
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