Shawn Mendes Talks Multiple Meanings Behind New Song 'What the Hell Are We Dying For?' & Releasing It So Quick

On the multiple meanings behind “What the Hell Are We Dying For?”: I feel like over the last year and a bit, I’ve just been really struggling in the studio to find my voice and to find myself musically and to even have the courage just to be in the room with writers or step into the booth and sing. And I was upstate New York and just on the back end of feeling a lot of things about relationships, about my career, about environment. And I was in the studio and this moment of just deep frustration came over me and I finally started to feel this inspiration come. And honestly, in that moment, it felt like it was the first time I felt that in a year and a half in the studio. And I just think singing along to this organ and this Juno loop we created, and the words came out of me just like, what am I dying for? And I think it’s the most abstract I’ve been in a long time writing about multiple things at the same time.

And I think to go back to the question of why was it so important to release, I think I had this feeling of urgency, this feeling of honestly excitement, this feeling of connection, this feeling of this is me right now, this is how I feel right now. This feeling of frustration that I just wanted to express in music. And I think we were up there in New York, the sky was orange, the air was thick and the words were flowing. And this happened. And in hindsight, it was scary. I woke up in the morning and I was like, “Wow, what did I do?” And I think it was a good thing for me to do for myself. I had to dive into the deep end. Otherwise, I would’ve sat there for years questioning myself… and I think it wraps around to just, what is it that we care about in life? Who do we care about? What’s worth it? Why do we show up the way we do?