Dying in a Hot Tub: A Cultural Criticism
The song “Dying in a Hot Tub” by Palaye Royale reveals many wrongs in our society. In a tweet, Palaye Royale divulged how the song is about one of their best friends who is an addict. In this spirit, we recognize that the song is testament to the lifestyle their friend lives due to their current discontentment with life.
The song begins with a narrative about visiting that friend:
You're looking skinny, you sleepy head
Well, have you gotten out of bed?
Have you gotten out of bed?
Getting concerned about my lonely friend
We first see the symptoms of depression and mental illness, in which the friend stays in bed all day and is starving themselves. In recent years due to social media platforms giving voice to virtually anyone who has a phone, the prevalence of this in today's youth has become very apparent. Many starve themselves to try to match society’s standard of beauty, in being skinny, as popularized by platforms like Instagram, where people Photoshop their pictures to adhere to this standard, instilling and promoting an unattainable ideal in the minds of the youth who view these media posts. While it is well known that people Photoshop their photos and that much of what people see on social media is fake, it does not stop users from pining for those body shapes. The body dysmorphia that results from this overrepresentation of one body type has led for many to fall into destructive habits, and to even develop mental illness. While more brands today are using different body types in advertising, you either see a typical model, tall and skinny, or someone plus sized, and often no body shape in between. This lack of representation for a whole group of people leads to a loss of confidence and unhappiness.
When unhappiness hits, people turn towards a source of escapism, such as drugs or alcohol. The song recognizes this trend in the youth:
Oh, your money is getting wasted
But you're always getting wasted all the time
Getting concerned about your lonely days
You're doing some more drugs
Getting caught in your "drug phase"
Especially with the romanticization of drugs on social media, this has become a widespread problem. Things like the media coverage of the legalization of marijuana has made marijuana more popular than ever, yet the effects of marijuana on undeveloped minds is a problem. As one’s brain matures at age 25, using drugs like marijuana can have negative impacts on the unstable minds. This can also easily lead to addiction, and compromise the lives of a great portion of the youth population. This song also brings up another, often overlooked point: how the upkeep of substance addiction adds up. This spending of money furthers the problem of debt, especially in the youth, as student debt is worse than ever before, crippling the lives of many as they slave over trying to pay back these loans. This leads to a vicious cycle of unhappiness, which then causes people to turn to substances, which uses up even more money, which then they struggle to make, which then leads to further unhappiness. This can easily lead to mental unwellness and often unstable relationships, due to personal discontentment.
As such, another effect of addiction and being mentally unwell is to isolate oneself from others. This song brings awareness to this as a potentially unhealthy behavior, as it showcases the unhappiness that comes along with self-isolation. Especially since phones and social media has led to a virtual world that if often used to interact, sometimes more than in the real world, it has become easier than ever to isolate oneself from others, and to wallow in negative feelings without a break. This further compounds things like body dysmorphia, and a proclivity towards drug use, as the youth may further use social media as a way to sit and escape from their life, like a drug, and can become addicted to being constantly stimulated by social media. This also leads to an unhealthy lifestyle, which furthers unhappiness, a detriment to society.
All these factors can lead to feelings of despair, covered by the song in:
You got nowhere to go, go, go, go, now
In this, the narrator thinks that they are unable to do anything on their own and they think they can’t go anywhere in life. These negative feelings are then likely subsided by drug use in:
Well, I'll fly to the moon again
Well, I'm sleeping with clothes up on my head
I'll fly to the moon again
I'm dying in a hot tub with my friends
which denotes how the drugs have led the person to start hallucinating friends, as the previous verse they talked about being alone. This is compounded especially in the next verse as the person starts hallucinating even crazier things, making their brain unable to function to take them out of their depression and hallucinations.
The subsequent verse furthers all these ideas:
'Cause you got nowhere to go, go, go, go, now
All these negative feelings mixed with a bad drug trip, where the hallucinations are getting too much and too real, leads to suicidal thoughts in order to escape feeling so horrible. And thus the title of the song reflects this sentiment in being called, “Dying in a Hot Tub” and perhaps relating to the imagery of self-harm in a tub in the song “Oh Ana” by Mother Mother. In “Oh Ana,” Mother Mother sings of slitting their wrists in a bathtub, to watch the blood evaporate, revealing mental illness. This is in first verse of “Oh Ana,” when Mother Mother sings:
I'll be God, I'll be God, I'll be God today
Hold my head under that bath and breathe away
Slit my wrists and watch that blood evaporate
Being this godly can't be good for
Ana's safety, Ana hear me
In this mantra throughout the song of “I’ll be God”, reveals the narrator’s wish to take control over their life, much like a god takes control of its creations' lives.
Whether by inadvertently including this wish for self-control and to get better, “Dying in a Hot Tub” by Palaye Royal reveals the immense personal strength and will that must go into helping one become well once again- needing a God like effort that is truly challenging for many. And perhaps it is impossible for many, as shown by how “Dying in a Hot Tub” never directly demonstrates the narrator getting well, instead going further and further into the drug trip and deleterious thoughts. Perhaps I tried to write in a happy ending that this narrator never got- especially since the song is titled “Dying in a Hot Tub” which may reveal the death of the narrator.
All people are worthy of living happily ever after, yet with so many negative influences in society, will the youth ever make it to The End?
