JC
Halsey & Marshmello: Be Kind
More than half a decade on from its release, the video for Be Kind still makes me feel all tingly! It’s like Marshmello, Halsey and their team understood exactly what makes music so important. Which OF COURSE they did. It’s not possible to unleash scorchers like Nightmare and Happier without understanding that songs aren’t just songs – they’re portals to another universe. I feel lucky to know that too. There are days where – strangely enough – I don’t want to spend another minute thinking about all the havoc and horror in this world. I’m so grateful I can say FORGET THAT and put my headphones on.
I LOVE the way my favourite songs transport me away from the dystopic real world and all the nitwits in charge of it. Halsey gets what I mean. Her pink hair isn’t just pink hair, it’s her sticking her tongue out at all the people that have done their best to kill the planet with their drabness and their meanness. In the Be Kind video, Halsey and Marshmello signpost a land where these people don’t exist, where everything is brightly-coloured, where we don’t walk – we DANCE – and where we aren’t dying, we’re blossoming. That place is real. It’s the future.
Be Kind, then, isn’t an important song simply because it allows us to escape the sound of chainsaws chopping down rainforests. Yes, it offers relief from that din, but just as importantly it’s laying the foundation for a time when that noise will have disappeared altogether. Look no further than the song title for evidence. This is music with a message. It’s not a complicated one but it’s important, and if all the people who are crazy about music can always be LOVELY, then we can absolutely believe that things will get better. Because, one day, the lunatics currently distributing the chainsaws will be outnumbered by people like us. People who know that pink hair isn’t just pink hair. Phew.