“Blinding Lights” is the second single from Canadian rapper The Weeknd’s fourth studio album. Last year, the famous singer established himself as one of the most successful pop and R&B artists in modern history. The Weeknd set several records during the year, including becoming the first Canadian musician to have four RIAA Diamond certified singles as a lead artist.
This year, The Weeknd was named the fourth most played artist in the world by Spotify after Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift and Drake. Starboy. Was also named the third most popular artist in the world and the fifth most popular artist in the US on the platform.
Blinding Lights has become the most streamed song on the Spotify platform ever. The Weeknd broke another record. The Toronto musician’s hit LP “Blinding Lights” surpassed Ed Sheeran’s massive “Shape Of You” LP, according to Chart Data. With 3.3 billion streams, the single became the most streamed song on Spotify at the end of 2022.
Blinding Lights also made it to the Guinness World Records as the best-selling digital song of 2022. The Weeknd also broke the record again in 2021 with the single Save Your Tears, which currently sits at number one.
Released a day after his last single “Heartless”, the hit “Blinding Lights” was released by The Weeknd, Ahmad Balshe (known as Belly), Jason Quenneville, Max Martin and Oscar Holter. Holter, Martin and The Weeknd also produced the track. On January 21, 2019, The Weeknd premiered the music video for the song “Blinding Lights” featuring model Mosa Calisa.
History of the song “Blinding Lights” – The Weeknd
The singer has not appeared on social networks for some time. He appeared on Instagram on November 20, 2019, and wrote the first message six days later, on November 26, 2019. On November 17, 2019, a Mercedes-Benz commercial with the clip “Blinding Lights” was shown for the first time on German television. It shows The Weeknd racing in a Mercedes-AMG GT C Roadster and trying to play his new song through the audio system.
A full-length ad block premiered on November 29 along with the single. A few days later, he posted on social media that he was returning to music with the slogan “start starts tomorrow night” and “Tonight we start a new brain melting ‘psychic chapter’! Go!”.
What is the meaning of this great hit?
And what does Blinding Lights actually mean… and it’s a bit of a dark topic. Unlike other artists who sometimes leave their lyrics up to the listener, The Weeknd explained in detail what his hit song really means. Featured on the cover of Esquire’s September 2020 magazine, the singer-songwriter told the publication that his song is actually about love, lust…and drunk driving: “‘Blinding Lights’ is about how you want to see someone , at night, and you’re drunk, and you drive to this man, and you’re just blinded by the street lights. But nothing can stop you from trying to see that person because you’re so alone.”
Parsing the meaning of lines:
In this dynamic electropop track, The Weeknd talks about how his love illuminates his life.
I said I’m blinded by the light
No I can’t sleep until I feel your touch
I said I’m drowning in the night
The singer will not rest if he does not see his beloved. The Weeknd told Esquire that the song is about how much you want to see your sweetheart, that even being sober doesn’t stop it.
In the song’s chorus, Abel talks about “Sin City”, a reference to Las Vegas. It is known as the city of “sin” due to its association with gambling, drugs and sex. The singer says that he prefers the emptiness of this place, since there he will not be judged for the sins that he will commit.
The chorus talks about how Abel was blinded by the “light”, also known as fame. These “blinding lights” may have included late-night relationships with women, drugs, and drinking. Now that he sees a better version of reality, he wishes to find someone to help him put the “star boy” life behind him.
In the second verse of “Blinding Lights”, Abel sings that he doesn’t have much time for love. However, in 2019, the Canadian singer turned only 29 years old. He talks about seeing “sunshine” in the sky, which may be a reference to “seeing the light” in that he sees the end of his time. It can also be quite literal that it’s almost dawn and he’s running out of time to be with his girlfriend.
The Weeknd was first seen hanging out with Bella Hadid in November 2017 after his split from Gomez. It was reported that there they “kissed all night” at a music festival party, but Hadid denied this. At the time, a source revealed that “Bella never lost her feelings for Abel [Tesfaye, real name The Weeknd] and hoped they would eventually get back together. They always met in secret.” She said that The Weeknd was “openly dating” other women, while she “wants to be the only one for him.”
Abel confessed his love in his songs only to high-speed driving. In his lyrics, he emphasized that he was racing in an overdrive car. “You go to this person and the street lights just blind you, but nothing can stop you from getting a chance to meet because you are very lonely,” he explained. “I don’t want to ever promote drunk driving, but that’s my dark undertone”
The Weeknd’s “I can’t imagine when you’re gone” seems to show how important Hadid’s consistency and reliability are to him in his life.
“Blinding Lights” is about how you want to see someone at night and you’re drunk and you’re driving to that person and you’re just blinded by street lights,” he explained. At first glance, it seems that the single is empty talk about how a guy wants to see his runaway girlfriend. However, The Weeknd is known for the dark side of his music. He revealed a deeper meaning of the single than it seems at first glance. And this is not an easy lyric.
