“I don’t wanna know what it’s like when you’re gone for good!” Shawn Mendes hurls this heart torn cry into the cosmos. “When You’re Gone” first uncurls like an indie-rock track, guitar trembling with ache and longing 一 before bursting into feverish dance-pop, cry-in-the-club catharsis. “I’m just trying to hold on,” he expresses his emotions are barely hanging on by a thread. Literal and otherwise. Flood waters slosh and rise around his body, and in part, he allows himself to feel the crashing waves on his skin. Sometimes, you have to feel even more to eventually claw yourself out.
Listen to “When You’re Gone” below.