Adele Explains Divorce To Her Son In Emotional Voice Memos Hidden In New Song
Adele’s newest album 30 contains heartbreaking voice memos to her 9-year-old son Angelo
Adele’s album 30 is set to drop on Friday, November 17, 2021, and according to the music critics who have already heard the album, it’s not just fantastic, but one song in particular has stood out for containing vulnerable voice note memos that Adele says were recorded as messages to her young son Angelo, as she tries to parse through her thoughts on the divorce from her his father Simon Konecki.
Stereogum reports that the voice memos appear on a ballad titled “My Little Love,” and the voice notes include messages to Adele’s son like, “I wanted you to have everything I never had,” and “I’m so sorry if what I’ve done makes you feel sad.”
Later in the song, Adele is heard saying, “I feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing,” and “I love your dad because he gave you to me.” In another moment she’s heard crying and describing her “newfound anxiety and loneliness.”
Adele recorded the voice memos on the suggestion of her therapist.
The emotional voice notes were never intended for the song, actually, and according to Adele’s Vogue interview, were a suggestion by her therapist to help her process her feelings about the divorce. Then, it was fellow artists Tyler, the Creator and Skepta, who told her to include those audio files in a song.
Adele agreed and put the memos on the song, telling Vogue: “I thought it might be a nice touch, seeing as everyone’s been at my door for the last 10 years, as a fan, to be like, Would you like to come in?'”
Adele hopes that the entire album will serve as a message to her son on why she divorced his father, and why she needed to make that change.
As Adele shared in a recent Instagram Live, the album is mainly about “divorce, babe,” and her feelings of shame and guilt about what she describes to British Vogue as her decision to “voluntarily chose to dismantle [Angelo’s] entire life in the pursuit of my own happiness.”
“I was just going through the motions and I wasn’t happy,” she told U.S. Vogue. “Neither of us did anything wrong. Neither of us hurt each other or anything like that. It was just: I want my son to see me really love, and be loved. It’s really important to me.”
“If I can reach the reason why I left, which was the pursuit of my own happiness, even though it made Angelo really unhappy — if I can find that happiness and he sees me in that happiness, then maybe I’ll be able to forgive myself for it,” Adele continued.
The album technically drops at midnight on Thursday, and according to advance reviews, it’s her best yet.
