There's no better way for Selena Gomez to return to music after a hiatus than hand-in-hand with one of her close friends. Songwriter Julia Michaels, who was behind some of Gomez's hits like "Hands To Myself," "Good For You," and "Bad Liar," now has a successful solo career of her own, but for her latest single, "Anxiety," she teamed back up with her BFF.
The song is about mental health, something that is close to both women's hearts. Gomez has been staying out of the public eye these past few months after entering treatment for an "emotional breakdown," and has not released any new music since her 2018 single "Back To You," aside from an appearance with Cardi B on "Taki Taki."
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However, it's clear from the lyrics why Gomez chose this song after a difficult few months.
Michaels begins by singing, "My friends, they wanna take me to the movies / I tell 'em to fuck off, I'm holding hands with my depression / And right when I think I've overcome it / Anxiety starts kicking in to teach that shit a lesson."
"Feel like I'm always apologizing for feeling like I'm out of my mind when I'm doing just fine," Gomez later sings "And my exes will say that I'm hard to deal with, and I admit it, it's true." The "exes" are likely Justin Bieber and The Weeknd.
And then there's the chorus:
"But all my friends, they don't know what it's like, what it's like / They don't understand why I can't sleep through the night / And I thought that I could take something to fix it / Damn, I wish it, I wish it was that simple, ah / All my friends they don't know what it's like, what it's like."
This isn't just something fans can relate to, but a message they'll appreciate hearing from the two stars. The song itself was a healing process.
"I was like I think it'd be really awesome to have a song with two women on it that struggle with the same thing, that are talking about something other than two women fighting for a guy's attention," Michaels told Zane Lowe about the new single. "It's us saying hey we have anxiety and we're okay with it. And she was like I am so into this, I love this so much. And that's how that whole thing happened, really. And I'm just so grateful that she's on it and I'm so grateful that the song's gonna be out."
Take a listen to the new single below, and then send it to your own BFF.