Redemption

**Redemption** is a Besomorph and Coopex song featuring RIELL. It was released on May 24, 2019.

Listen to **Redemption**

## Theme

This song is about someone who has been shaped by a traumatic past and how this impacts all forms of relationships they have with new people. When someone tries to “save” this person, they realize they will have to break themselves in order to understand the person they are trying to “save” and be destroyed in the process because she does not need to be saved. This will always happen with every new person who comes along and for the person singing this song, Redemption will never come because she learned she didn’t need it.

In a "Behind The Lyrics" video for **Redemption**, RIELL explained that "the song started as a collab two years ago, and it was released almost two years ago with Besomorph and Coopex. It started as they gave me the track, and then I wrote the lyrics and the melody for the song. And if I had to describe the song in one sentence, it would be 'unresolved childhood trauma, and the effect it has on present and future relationships.' I think overall, it doesn't necessarily have to be childhood for other people, but it's just how situations that have been really hard for you and have changed you, how that affects how you connect with people and how you choose the people who are in your life."

## Lyrics

[Verse]

You say I make you nervous, a tragedy

I’m a beautiful disaster, a reckoning

You wonder how I got this way

(You wonder how I got this way)

You think I’m someone to be saved

Someone to clean up and tame

Oh, some things never change, never change oh

You think I would look pretty on your arm

Once you cover up my bruises and battle scars

But it always ends the same

(But it always ends the same)

Can’t bear the things I’ve had to face

Got you crying on your knees in pain

Oh, some things never change

Never change oh

[Chorus]

You’ll break your back to make me feel again

Suffocate to make me breathe again

Lose your mind from endless praying

Some things never change, never change oh

Redemption never came

[Verse]

I stopped asking for forgiveness cause you should know

Only fools tread where the angels fear to go

But you keep trying to get too close

(But you keep trying to get too close)

Saved myself by turning into stone

So save your judgment cause you just don’t know

But some things never change, never change oh

They say I should feel guilty and change my ways

Leaving crumpled bodies in my wake

Swear I didn’t mean to make them break

(Swear I didn’t mean to make them break)

But they’re so delicate and so mundane

And they keep coming like a moth to flame

Oh, some things never change, never change mm

[Chorus]

You’ll break your back to make me feel again

Suffocate to make me breathe again

Lose your mind from endless praying

Somethings never change, never change oh

Redemption never came

## Background

* A live acoustic of **Redemption** was posted on RIELL's youtube on May 23, 2019.

* The live acoustic version was released on other streaming services on March 19, 2021.
* A lyric video for **Redemption** was posted on RIELL's YouTube on October 21, 2019.
* RIELL posted a "Behind The Lyrics" video for **Redemption** in the style of a Genius lyrics breakdown on March 24, 2021.

## Lyrics breakdown

### Verse 1

You say I make you nervous, a tragedy

I’m a beautiful disaster, a reckoning

You wonder how I got this way

(You wonder how I got this way)

You think I’m someone to be saved

Someone to clean up and tame

Oh, some things never change, never change oh

"It's based off of this thing that I've seen a lot, and I'm not a psychologist so don't quote me on this research or whatever, but they were saying that people with childhood trauma specifically—and maybe other types of trauma, I don't know—they often are finding themselves drawn to narcissistic partners or like really toxic people because it feels like home, which is not great. But basically, it's like being drawn to these people with god complexes or hero complexes who think you're like some damsel where you're like, 'oh I see this darkness inside you and I will save you'.

You think I would look pretty on your arm

Once you cover up my bruises and battle scars

But it always ends the same

(But it always ends the same)

Can’t bear the things I’ve had to face

Got you crying on your knees in pain

Oh, some things never change

Never change oh

"This part of the verse builds on that first part of this person who thinks they can save you, who thinks they can just cover up your trauma and make you some perfect person to be with, because they're not really into, as narcissists do, they try to change their partner, be the center of their world, build them up to break them down so that their self-worth is completely reliant on them. So that's that type of person, and basically this verse is being like, 'okay, I see you're that type of person, but I'm not someone to be saved, I'm not broken, I'm not anything'.

And obviously, looking back on this song two years from having written it, and I'm in a much better place than I was then, and I've resolved a lot of the things that this song was originally about, I've unpacked it, done my work on that, but this part is basically feeling misunderstood when people don't understand how hard things have been, and they try to underplay it for you and stuff like that, so it's a combination of being like, 'you can't save me, you don't even understand me', kinda getting angry about that almost."

### Chorus

You’ll break your back to make me feel again

Suffocate to make me breathe again

Lose your mind from endless praying

"So the chorus is about that anger I talked about before coming through. It's basically 'who the frick do you are to think that I need to be saved?', like, I've been through a lot, I'm very independent, I'm not weak, I'm strong, so I don't need you to save me, and you're gonna destroy yourself trying. That's basically what the chorus is about.

In addition to that, there's also the side where a lot of people who have a lot of stuff to work on internally, which was definitely me when I wrote this song, they can often also 'save' other people where they want to help people and find their value in being worth something to others. So it's also a reminder that when people have like an internal struggle and trauma, you can support people but you can't save people. People save themselves in the internal world. You definitely can have help through your support network, through therapy, through everything else, but it has to be their choice and it's their journey.

So, this chorus is kinda saying to someone like 'bro, this is my journey. You can help me and I would appreciate that, but you can't "save" me, you can't "fix" me.' It's also a reminder to myself, you can't 'save' others. You're not god."

Some things never change, never change oh

Redemption never came

"So this line comes up a lot through this song, a lot of people actually think the song is called 'Some things never change', which I totally get. And back in when I wrote this, what this meant to me is basically after so many years of pushing all these feelings down, it's like, 'this is how I am, and I'm happy with it, and don't change me, I'm fine". Two years later after having unpacked a lot of this stuff, I'm like, 'yeah, you still can't change me, I changed myself', but that's what this line is."

### Verse 2

I stopped asking for forgiveness cause you should know

Only fools tread where the angels fear to go

But you keep trying to get too close

(But you keep trying to get too close)

Saved myself by turning into stone

So save your judgment cause you just don’t know

But some things never change, never change oh

"So, the second verse takes a sad turn, where it's basically 'you know what, maybe I will never feel 100%. Maybe I'm just meant to live in this darkness.' I still love the whole dark vibe, totally my thing, I love i still. But now I love it in a more healthy way. Back when I wrote this song, it was basically being like, 'you know what, maybe I'll never be understood and maybe no one will ever understand what I went through. But, at this point I'm not gonna feel guilty about it,' The quote that I used here is 'only fools tread where the angels fear to go', and I borrowed that from a very old English philosopher, but it's basically saying, 'now I'm going into villainous bad bitch energy".

They say I should feel guilty and change my ways

Leaving crumpled bodies in my wake

Swear I didn’t mean to make them break

(Swear I didn’t mean to make them break)

But they’re so delicate and so mundane

And they keep coming like a moth to flame

Oh, some things never change, never change mm

"This point, things just kind of break apart, like there's no way to have a healthy relationship, even platonic, romantic, whatever, there's just no way to have that without bringing something healthy to the table on both ends. And I mean, I definitely wasn't two years ago, the people I was with definitely weren't two years ago either, So that's kind of how this ends, things will fall apart, nothing works out when you have unresolved stuff."

## Sources

1. ↑ https://genius.com/16913705
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5B7B4oaVdM
3. ↑ https://youtu.be/Y5B7B4oaVdM?t=97
4. ↑ https://youtu.be/Y5B7B4oaVdM?t=159
5. ↑ https://youtu.be/Y5B7B4oaVdM?t=248
6. ↑ https://youtu.be/Y5B7B4oaVdM?t=248
7. ↑ https://youtu.be/Y5B7B4oaVdM?t=382
8. ↑ https://youtu.be/Y5B7B4oaVdM?t=456