Trent Reznor ‘Teared Up’ When He Heard ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa

“The Milky Way, we’re renegading” Photo: Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images

What’s that in Trent Reznor’s eye? No, not glitter — a tear? That was the case when the Nine Inch Nails leader first heard Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” he recently revealed. It started when Reznor was on producer Rick Rubin’s podcast Tetragrammaton, recanting his opinion that today’s pop “sucks generally.” He mentioned he overheard a Lipa song that his daughter was singing along to. “It really reminded me of the art of writing a well-crafted song — I teared up listening to a Dua Lipa track, because it was just a really well-done piece of music, you know?” he said on the podcast, without revealing which song it was. Later, on June 19, he responded to a commenter on a Stereogum Instagram post that it was indeed “Levitating.” Yes, the same song that you tired of after hearing it for two years straight is the one that leveled (hurt?) an industrial-rock legend. What’s more, Reznor added: “When she got to the ‘sugarboo’ line, it broke me.” From the same man who made “Head Like a Hole.”