rizwan
4 min readFeb 6, 2022
Mac Miller in the studio

There is much speculation about the death of rapper Mac Miller. After the arrests, nearly a year after his death, it still doesn’t sit right.

Reddit boards are full of people saying he committed suicide, but as the authorities clearly ruled it as an accidental overdose, I guess the real answer is ‘We’ll never really know.’

Great success of “Self-Care”, which came out after Miller’s near brush with death when his Mercedes crashed into a tree.

However, I was surprised to find that Self — Care was written before even the car accident. Here is a man, who was struggling with taking care of his own health post his breakup with the world’s heartthrob — Ariana Grande. It must’ve been hard to even turn on the tv or radio for Mac around then.

When he died, he was making the album Circles. Quoting from the GQ article about his Posthumous album “Circles” — “It’s hard to listen to Circles without wearing what Brion describes as “loss goggles.” Dying can elevate an artist’s mythology. But it also robs them of any semblance of control. They can’t push back against false interpretations (something Miller found futile even while he was alive).”

My favorite track on the album is “Good News”. It sounds like a person ‘spring-cleaning inside their head’ as he himself puts it.

He sounds like he was trying to ‘step-away’ from his shadow side. As someone always struggling to do the same, or to put it metaphorically, someone having trouble ‘keeping my demons at bay’, it’s nice to listen to Mac’s voice hopeful albeit sad.

While ‘self-care’ topped the charts because of it’s video with Mac Miller in a coffin, the song I choose to remember him by is ‘Good News’.

Maybe its because I’d also like to believe ‘there’s a whole lot more for me waiting.’

I spent the whole day in my head
Do a little spring cleaning, I’m always too busy dreaming
Well, maybe I should wake up instead
A lot of things I regret but I just say I forget
Why can’t it just be easy?
Why does everybody need me to stay?
Oh, I hate the feeling
When you’re high but you’re underneath the ceiling
Got the cards in my hand, I hate dealing
Yeah
Get everything I need, then I’m gone
But it ain’t stealing
Can I get a break?
I wish that I could just get out my goddamn way
What is there to say?
There ain’t a better time than today

Maybe I’ll lay down for a little, yeah
‘Stead of always trying to figure everything out
And all I do is say sorry
Half the time, I don’t even know what I’m saying it about

Good news, good news, good news
That’s all they wanna hear
No, they don’t like it when I’m down
But when I’m flying, oh, it make ’em so uncomfortable
So different, what’s the difference?

When it ain’t that bad
It could always be worse
I’m running out of gas, hardly anything left
Hope I make it home from work
Well, so tired of being so tired
Why I gotta build something beautiful just to go set it on fire?
I’m no liar, but sometimes the truth don’t sound like the truth
Maybe ’cause it ain’t, I just love the way it sound when I say it
Yeah, it’s what I do
If you know me, it ain’t anything new
Wake up to the moon, haven’t seen the sun in a while
But I heard that the sky’s still blue, yeah
Heard they don’t talk about me too much no more
And that’s a problem with a closed door

Good news, good news, good news
That’s all they wanna hear
No, they don’t like it when I’m down
But when I’m flying, oh, it make ’em so uncomfortable
So different, what’s the difference?

There’s a whole lot more for me waiting on the other side
I’m always wondering if it feel like summer
I know maybe I’m too late, I could make it there some other time
I’ll finally discover
That there’s a whole lot more for me waiting
That there’s a whole lot more for me waiting
I know maybe I’m too late, I could make it there some other time
Then I’ll finally discover
That it ain’t that bad
Ain’t so bad
Well, it ain’t that bad
At least it don’t gotta be no more
No more, no more, no more, no more
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hey
Mm, hey, mm

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