Every album that Madison Beer has released is awe-inspiring to us, but we think that her latest project, locket, is unquestionably her magnum opus thus far. Throughout locket, Madison explores the ‘complexity’ of navigating relationships, mental health, and personal growth in your young adult years, reflecting on how her past experiences and mindsets have shaped her more recent memories. She utilizes the album itself as a locket for her to secure some of those recent memories, preserving them but also externalizing them so she can move forward without holding them too tightly. The results are absolutely beautiful and unflinchingly vulnerable, seeing Madison come into her own and come to terms with her past in the process.
Madison’s relatable honesty, growth-focused narratives, and gorgeous vocals have never failed to captivate us, and we’re definitely not the only ones. For the first time in her career, she officially has a Top 10 album on the Billboard 200! To celebrate Madison’s career-high #10 debut and the evolution of her art, let’s take a look at 10 standout lyrics from locket that nearly made us pause to really process them.
“Pain on a necklace / Set it down, I’m weightless / Everything that I could ever need is within me…”
Opening track ‘locket theme’ appropriately introduces us to the theme of the locket album and how Madison views the songs on the project. She paints it as a time capsule of sorts that lets us into her world as she gets some difficult memories and feelings off her chest, like how she would literally take a necklace away from her chest and separate those experiences from her present self.
Madison explained the locket imagery to Vogue, saying, “I feel like lockets are very delicate and beautiful, and feminine, and they hold important things, and memories, and people, and places.” Through that image, you get the sense that she sees the importance of preserving such memories, but doesn’t want to be chained to them forever. She learns to honor her story without letting it restrain her.
“I dress in all black / It’s easier to act like you aren’t here than to ignore you / Dead to me…”
‘angel wings’ has such a relatable message about how you sometimes have to pretend someone is entirely gone from the world to avoid awkwardness or falling for them again. Dressing in all black might be associated with general sadness – see Madison’s ‘Dangerous’ music video for a gorgeous example – but it’s also how people dress at funerals, as she bids farewell to this person’s presence in her life.
“Some days I barely respond to my own name / You say, when will I grow out of my old ways?”
On ‘for the night,’ Madison pleads with a partner or ex to distract her from inner turmoil and “put [her] back together,” even if it’s just for a night. It’s dreamily hazy and flirty, but lines like this one reveal the darker side of those wishes and how they act as a momentary crutch for her. You never find out if the person she’s inviting over ever gives in and visits her, mirroring how disconnected and disoriented Madison seems to feel at the moment.
“You say, when will I grow out of my old ways?” also presents a very real, raw part of the personal growth that Madison explores on locket. Healing is rarely, if ever, linear and this momentary relapse into the dependency she describes on songs like ‘bad enough’ doesn’t erase the work she’s done.
“I’m sorry that I let you kiss me / I’m sorry that I dragged you down with me / And now we’re at the bottom and we both know…”
The climactic bridge of ‘bad enough’ feels like a more mature version of the self-blaming tendencies Madison expressed on past songs like ‘Selfish’ and ‘At Your Worst.’ This song describes a relationship that doesn’t seem unhealthy, but isn’t making the narrator truly happy either. She admits that she “don’t know how to be alone” and reflects on how that mindset might make her stay in unsatisfying situations that hold her back. You could see this section as an apology to her “baby” for leading him on, or to herself for settling in such a situation when she could find something more fulfilling.
Madison told Billboard News, “We wanted to make something that was like that feeling of knowing that you should get out of something, but it’s not quite bad enough to get out of it. And I feel like I’ve spoken to so many people in relationships that are, like, I’ve literally heard people say, ‘I wish he would cheat on me, or I wish he would do something to give me a reason to break up with him.’ I’m not speaking for myself, but I’ve heard that be said before.”
“And I wonder if it’s worth doing again / And I wonder if it’s worth doing it again / And I wonder if, and I wonder if / And I wonder if it’s worth doing again…”
‘healthy habit’ touches on some maybe-not-the-best-but-also-not-the-worst coping mechanisms, such as “smoking in the kitchen and romanticizing” someone or “kissing random boys and pretending they’re” the person you miss. There are a lot of really beautiful, vulnerable lines on this song, but we ultimately chose this section as our favorite because of how well the repetition mimics a thought spiral. It’s a thoughtful detail that proves how much consideration Madison gives to how she presents her stories.
“I only exist in the moments you’re talking to me / If we can’t be together then I’ll just go back to sleep / Wish I was something to you, baby, you’re everything to me…”
We imagine that whenever Madison has an album, she has a checklist item to add at least one song that will make us bawl our eyes out every time. Several locket songs make us teary but ‘you’re still everything’ is definitely the one getting us the most emotional lately! To feel like you’re nothing to someone you adore this much is such a painful feeling, and we love how Madison goes back and forth between saying it in poetic ways and plainly stating how hurt she is.
The idea of going back to sleep gives us the sense that Madison wants to see this person in her dreams, which ties to the “Are you dreaming?” lyric on the flirty ‘make you mine.’ It also reminds us of some lines from her 2023 song ‘Spinnin’ that describe how dreams can be an escape from daily life: “I woke up, fell back to sleep, ‘cause I’d rather live in my dreams.”
“I lay awake thinking, ‘How did I let you go?’ / Getting away unscathed for so damn long / I got away, took my time, I’m okay alone…”
The first two lines of this section from ‘bittersweet’ tie into each other in such a smart way! When you hear her think, “How did I let you go?,” you assume she’s missing her ex, but she continues the thought and wonders how she let him get away with so much. It complements the song’s theme of holding space for the good and bad memories, along with the regret and eventual relief of letting someone go.
The “I’m okay alone” line shows some of Madison’s growth and how far she’s really come in her confidence – remember her confession on ‘bad enough’ that she “don’t know how to be alone?” She understands now that it’s better to deal with the difficulties of being alone than the difficulties of being stuck in an unhealthy situation.
“All of my fine complexities, the baggage that I turned into beauty…”
Has there ever been a Madison Beer lyric that summarizes her work as strongly as this line from ‘complexity?’ She’s always been so vulnerable about things she’s gone through and her mental health, using both her music and her debut memoir, The Half Of It, to free herself from past burdens and help fans like us feel less alone in what they may be facing. Describing what some might call flaws as “complexities” instead reflects how she’s more willing than ever to give herself grace and room to evolve.
She explained to Billboard News, “I really wanted it to be about me and everything I’ve been through and how I’ve managed to come out the other side of a lot of hardships… That’s really what it’s about, and, like, knowing your self-worth.”
“Step inside my mind, you can see the shrine, got you on my walls…”
A lot of ‘make you mine’ takes place on some sort of surreal plane, with Madison describing her connection with someone as a “fantasy [come] to life” and asking them, “Are you dreaming?” Despite taking place in her mind, the imagery in this line is so physical and relatable, adding another dimension to the story.
As fangirls, we relate to this line a little too much! Who didn’t cover their walls with a ton of posters from those 2010s teen magazines?!
“I used to feel like all my fantasies were real, but now my dreams have lost all their appeal…”
If you believe in astrology, then you won’t be surprised to know Madison is a Pisces! Pisceans are known for their dreamy, hopeful outlook on the world, which can unfortunately crumble if they go through difficult experiences like Madison describes on locket and her earlier music. ‘nothing at all’ details how the things she’s been through have impacted her worldview, admitting how she’s “somewhere in the middle of it all” as she learns to honor those jaded feelings while also pushing herself to pave a better future.
Madison opened up to Paper about how her musical dreams feel less appealing at times, “I love what I do. But you’ll hear on the album, on ‘locket theme’ I touch on it a little bit. I talk about how I had to take a step back to see if I even wanted to continue this. It’s a lot at times, it’s really f**king intense. I’m somebody that can’t turn off my very sensitive heart and sometimes this job is not cut out for people like that. There are times when I need to take a step back… Ultimately, I decided to make another album and stay here.”
Which locket tracks do you love most? Which lyrics would you write down, fold up, and place in your own locket? Let us know in the comments below or hit us up on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! You can also buzz on over to our Reddit community to chat with us.
Check out more sweet Madison Beer content!
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MADISON BEER:
FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TIKTOK | HQ TWITTER | WEBSITE | YOUTUBE
