#dog years

[cozy-the-overlord]

I’ve seen several people talking about how it makes them feel weird that Dog Years, a song that is explicitly about suicidal ideation, is something Halsey performs as a sexy song, and while that’s completely fair, I personally think the performance style fits the song really well, even if it’s uncomfortable? (In fact, I think the discomfort is a purposeful, important element of the whole song)

Discussion of suicidal ideation and sex as a unenthusiastic performance below the cut

The first time I heard Dog Years I called it “evil petplay” when explaining it to my friends because that imagery seems so deliberate. Halsey’s voice is getting all husky and low as they croon about what a good dog they’ve been and how they like a tight leash, and especially given their known love of/interest in kink, that takes your mind to a very specific and imo intentional place. But they turn it on its head — if they’re going to be a dog, then they’re an old, tired, weak, sickly one and they want to be put out of their misery and euthanized like you would any pet in that state, and that is very not sexy. It’s a visceral image that can be quite upsetting and uncomfortable, all the more so when paired with the very sexually charged chorus. It makes that chorus feel like more of a reluctant performance — she doesn’t feel sexy, she’s not in the mood, but it’s what’s expected of her and so she’s going along with it and hey, if she’s a good girl maybe she’ll get lucky and they’ll put her down. “I’m not here, I’m somewhere else” — they’re going through the motions of the performance and playing along with what’s expected of them but their heart is not in it, and they feel nothing towards it.

And I feel like that plays into the entire theme of The Great Impersonator as a whole? The whole idea of the expected performance and what that experience does to a person: going through the motions because you’re an entertainer and your job is to entertain and put on a show, but the whole time you’re in the darkest place you’ve ever been both physically and mentally, so sick that you truly expect you aren’t going to survive it. But you still have to do the show, you still have to make it look good, you still have to be appealing to the crowd, and so you have to play the good girl who loves her tight leash because that’s fun and sexy, and the rest of it is something you keep to yourself because people don’t want to hear about that.

I really like the staging of Dog Years on the FMLT tour for that reason. There is something so visceral about Halsey sitting in sexy leather lingerie while literally chained to the stage singing about how much they want someone to just kill them. Sure, it’s sexy, but she is stuck there performing for you, even as she’s voicing some of the darkest thoughts a person can have about themselves. How does that make you feel? Is it hot? Are you enjoying it? Should you be? That just fits the vibe I get from that song so well.

Of course, I could be fully misreading and Halsey could have had completely different intentions for this song, but that’s just how I’ve seen it?

[haylewilliams]

Dog Years, Halsey

[apoemaday]

Dog Years

by Michael Bazzett

We’re all aware that when we are walking the dog, and he spends an hour lovingly sniffing posts and tufts, and we then return home and his tongue hangs from his panting mouth,

that somehow seven hours have passed for him, which means that, allotting time for grieving, our lives consist of maybe five dogs, and when we clutch the slack skin behind a puppy’s ear, when

we gather up that impossibly soft coat into our fists, part of the stabbing intensity of our grip comes from grief. Right there. Even as that soft pink tongue is licking you. But what we do not

consider often enough is that old-growth maples peer down at us in the same way, bewildered by how soon we are gone, how little we grasp while we’re here, at our odd rootless ways of love.

[iamnotawomanimagod]

Dog Years feels like it should be this "badass bitch" song but if you listen to the lyrics closely it's HEARTBREAKING. Comparing herself to a dog and begging for the simple joys. Wishing she could be euthanized like their dog, Jagger, was. Translating her age to dog years to express how exhausted and over everything they are.

Fuck.

[churchandmouse]

dollsey

@tiredandlonelymuse

[616octoberlane]

dog years by halsey , collage by me

11"x16"

[arlgray]

lowkey i think dog years by halsey is the most trinity santos song to ever exist

[lyriumsaber]

#FRANKENSTEIN // i’ve been a really good dog …