Everything To Me, the final track in Porter Robinson’s new album, is special. It’s a love letter to his fans.
In a livestream he goes deeper into the meaning behind the track:
Writing an album that's about my career and writing an album about my fans. The ups and downs of that and what's it's given me and what it's taken from me.
The fact is, all of my patterns in my life and my ways of thinking and my habits have been informed by obsessing over music and my obsessing over my career and obsessing over what other people think and what other people are going to say.
And now I'm 32 and reckoning with the fact that I started doing this when I was 18. For over half my life as a human being I have been with these people. Something can become such a big part of your life and you can't escape it, or something. I was reflecting the permanence of it and how it will probably define me to some extent.
It’s strange. In every album release, Porter touches on themes I’m wrestling with at that time. And ofc I'm far from alone.
I too have been almost entirely career-focused for most of my adult life. And like Porter, it’s given me so much, but at the sacrifice of other things.
I don’t have a clean takeaway for this essay. Perhaps the message is within the opening lyric of the song:
“Strobe lights, heart signs, and it’s over”
❤️