Many people, including Adele, are saying that her new song, “Easy On Me,†is about her divorce. Unfortunately, that is not true. It is about her poltergeist.
This reading is borne out in both the lyrical content of “Easy On Me†and the accompanying video, directed by Xavier Dolan. Adele begins the video in the house from the “Hello†video, which was a song about buying a house before you realize it has a poltergeist. The house is now a chilling sight to behold. Chairs are upended (likely by the poltergeist); the furniture is covered (to trick the poltergeist). Someone (Adele) is leaving in a hurry. Crows screech ominously in the distance. Flies buzz near a dilapidated window as Adele walks carefully toward it, gazing out one last time before she grabs her suitcase and sunglasses and runs for the proverbial hills.
Outside, the wind is loud, angry. Something does not want Adele to leave. She answers her phone: “Hi, darling,†she says to someone, probably her paranormal investigator. “I’m getting on the road now. All packed. About to leave.†As she says this, she glances back at the house, fearful. Did it hear her? She tells her investigator that if she is “late, go ahead and start without me, all good.†Why would she be late? And to what? She doesn’t say. But we (those of us who have consumed the Paranormal Activity franchise) know.
Suddenly, Adele’s signal drops. “Can you hear me?†she asks, visibly frightened. The paranormal investigator cannot, in fact, hear her. The wind picks up as Adele heads to her car, shot from overhead, to suggest that someone — something — is watching her.
She gets into the car and puts in a cassette tape, because famously, poltergeists destroy technology, and that’s why she can’t plug in her phone like a normal person. As she drives away from the house, we see that it has already been sold, meaning Adele has knowingly passed a haunted object onto another family. It’s fine … this is basically the only way to get rid of a poltergeist. The song begins.
Adele drives past a group of kooky randos having a Christmas party on the road, for some reason. The cheery scene, which rings of The Shining, is meant to demonstrate the sort of joy that Adele herself has not been able to experience after five years spent trapped inside a house with a vengeful spirit. “I know there is hope in these waters / But I can’t bring myself to swim / When I am drowning in this silence,†she sings, admitting that she has felt very lonely because she has not had people over in years, as she didn’t want them to be freaked by her poltergeist.
The song then switches to the imperative. “Go easy on me,†she pleads, with the poltergeist, who has been tormenting her ever since her last album by turning all of her furniture over. Unfortunately, it soon becomes clear that the poltergeist has followed her out of her house and has now concerned itself with messing with her music pages. They all fly crazily out of her car window, bidden by some unseen demon. She looks into the rearview mirror, fucking pissed. Not this shit again.
She keeps driving. She ends up at a new house, ready to start her life as a normal human millionaire who has no poltergeist but still “can’t afford real estate in London.†(I now understand she is avoiding London, as it is haunted.) Unfortunately the universe has other plans for Adele. It is instantly clear that her new house contains the same old poltergeist. Music pages swirl around her head. Furniture is stacked in odd formations behind her, the sorts of formations that could only be dreamed up by a supernatural entity hell-bent on chaos.
She sits down in the new house in the middle of the room on a single chair with no table, which is the sort of self-preservationist thing you learn to do when you have a poltergeist. “There ain’t no room for things to change / When we are both so deeply stuck in our ways / You can’t deny how hard I have tried / I changed who I was to put you both first / But now I give up,†she sings as her material goods bounce psychotically around the room. The lyrics are clear as day: Adele has now begrudgingly accepted her poltergeist. Though she attempted to separate from it, it is now apparent: They cannot exist without one another. Perhaps, she allows herself to think, the poltergeist is the source of her artistic inspiration?
The music video shifts into color, demonstrating Adele’s change of heart vis-à -vis her poltergeist. Now she is standing, letting the papers fly all over the fucking place. “I had good intentions / And the highest hopes,†she sings to the poltergeist, explaining that she wasn’t trying to be rude — she just did not want a poltergeist in her life right now. “But I know right now / It probably doesn’t even show,†she sings, acknowledging that, yes, she did hire a paranormal investigator and moved homes in an attempt to rid herself of the poltergeist. She is sorry about that.
It is now unbelievably windy inside Adele’s new house. This is the kind of wind that cannot come from the outside; it is from a very emotional ghost. Adele again asks the spurned poltergeist to “go easy on me!!!!†She decides to go for another drive to give it a little space to process. She spots her paranormal investigative team on the road — maybe she can ask them for help with her poltergeist? No. They are too busy leaning out of their car windows and then talking on the outside of the car instead of on the inside of the car (?) to help her. So she goes back home, billions of music pages still flying out of the car. This will happen every time she drives now.
Back at home, the camera pans up to Adele’s chandelier, which is, of course, moving freakily by itself. Adele looks back at the camera, which we now understand has been shooting the whole time from the point of view of the poltergeist. “Go easy on me,†she sings once more to her poltergeist, shaking her head ruefully. The wind picks up again. Adele begins to laugh maniacally. The unholy demon is now within her.
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