Drive - Intellectual

Interstate-405, or “the 405” is a California highway. A long distance from Bed Stuy, but she’s a wanderess belonging to no city. The stick shift gives a vintage Americana vibe to this roadtrip.

She swerves on the road, but her eyes are more focused on her lover, as implied by the following lyric.

Hailing from New Jersey and living up her teenage years in New York, Halsey is more comfortable in the east coast. In 2015, she joined forces with Lido, producer and now ex-boyfriend, and moved into a new California apartment together.

With new-found fame, settling down in completely different place may have been daunting to her. With Lido at her side, however, she felt safe. He has the ability to comfort her as if she’s home no matter where she may be.

Further, the addition of Lido’s vocals in the second round of this chorus suggests that the feelings are mutual. Both parties recognize they need each other, even though they aren’t entirely sure of all emotions being equal. Perhaps this indicates that they reason they remained together is mostly because of the comfort they find with each other.

Her lover’s lips-to-neck hickeys cause her to miss the exit routes they needed to take.

This doubles as a metaphor that becoming distracted by the present can cause you to lose focus of the future. The streetlights shine the way to their destination, but she’s too infatuated by the kiss.

His joyous laugh is so compelling and potent it breaches the dark, empty feeling in her soul and heals the aching inside of her. Halsey sings of similar pleasure coming from a void in “Garden”:

And when I first met you, there was a garden
Growing from a black hole in my mind

In the demo version of “Drive,” she sings “crawls” instead of “carves.”

Many people can feel frustrated and impatient in a slow-burning relationship, and with Halsey expressing the need for her lover to just make the move already in this sombre line, there are traces of vulnerability.

Close to a year before “Drive” was released, Halsey posted a black and white video on her Instagram picturing a drive along a highway with what appear to be flares in the distance. We hear Halsey singing along to this melody, sharing the demo version of this portion of “Drive.”

https://instagram.com/p/wDWfgiHOPO/

Both Halsey and her lover know they have feelings for one another and are sick of concealing it, but remain afraid of humility and avoid being the first to make a move. They sit in the silence, taking in the pleasure of each other’s presence. Neither will further their relationship until they encounter an indicator giving them the green light to do so.

A sign could derive from a higher power—often referenced in Halsey’s songs—or as they were mentioned in the first verse to have been exit signs on the highway.

In the first chorus, Halsey sings alone, but the second time around, her producer and now ex-boyfriend, Lido, sings along with her. The two vocalists represent Halsey and her lover, proving they are aware they both feel the same way. It is likely that Halsey and Lido are telling a story of their own relationship.