Embrace - Intellectual

[Intro]

Always pushed you away, ah (Oh, oh)

But it's you that keeps me sane, ah

Know that I'll be okay, I

Embrace you, knowin' you the thing that's gettin' me through, oh (Hmm)

Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

[Verse: Russ]

Yeah

This heated floor is made out of my lost marbles (Yeah)

Heard I'm gettin' M's, it's crazy we shopped at Marshall's (Crazy)

I don't like Marvel movies but, shit, it's cool

'Cause my self doubt drowned, it's dead, I'm in my pool

Tryna get tanned (Yeah)

I got my feet up like a keg stand (A keg stand)

My mom's wrist looks like a festival, it's ten bands

I'm Rembrandt the way I used to paint the sky with the Dutch smoke

I smelled like twenty bucks and Dove soap (Haha)

Now I smell like seven million dollar wires (Yeah)

Got so many voices in my head, could start a choir (Come on)

Workin' on acceptin' the coexistance of good and bad

If I can see the good in me then I can see the good in dad (Yes)

Me and my brother goin' through it, I'm hurtin', it's hard to empathize and separate behavior from person

So I shame him like my dad did (Yeah)

Tryna celebrate accomplishments while dealin' with some bullshit is the average day of mine

But I'm wastin' time tryna stop the shit, 'cause longin' for a life without sufferin' is what causes it

So I acknowledge all of it inside the studio

From losin' a best friend to landin' a lead movie role

The good, bad and in-between, cheers to all three (All three)

They taught me more than any teachers ever taught me (Taught me)

Valdosta state, then a couple months at Kennesaw

I dipped, I live a sweet life, I went and found my Brenda Song (Come here)

We out in London with Ed Sheeran at Gymkhana (What up man?)

My self-belief's been absolute, I used to drink vodka

I'm pissed I gotta deal with family drama constantly

Business partners fuckin' up, my girl wants to talk to me (What now?)

She said that I was bein' rude, I said, "Probably"

I'm goin' through a lot, that's no excuse, but I'm honestly suffocatin' (I am)

Spiralin', tryna fix it all (Tryin')

But maybe peace of mind is when you don't resist at all (Yeah)

[Chorus]

Always pushed you away, ah (Oh, oh)

But it's you that keeps me sane, ah

Know that I'll be okay, I

Embrace you, knowin' you the thing that's gettin' me through, oh (Hmm)

Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

[Outro]

Always pushed you away, ah (Oh, oh)

But it's you that keeps me sane, ah

Know that I'll be okay, I

Embrace you, knowin' you the thing that's gettin' me through, oh (Hmm)

Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

Russ bought his mom an expensive watch to wear on her wrist. In slang, the word ‘band’ refers to one-thousand dollars so “ten bands” means Russ’ mom’s watch is worth at least $10k.

Russ also uses the word ‘band’ to refer to a group of musicians performing together, hence the word “festival” because multiple different bands perform at a music festival. Here, “ten bands” has a double meaning, referring to both a large amount of money as well as ten different musical acts.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, otherwise known as Rembrandt, was a 17th century Dutch painter who lived from 1606-1669. He is widely regarded as the greatest artist of Holland’s ‘Golden Age’ and even one of the greatest painters of all time.

Rembrandt was highly regarded for his unique use of light and shadow, masterfully crafting his paintings by adding a stark contrast in tone between lighter and darker areas, which added to the sense of drama his paintings were known for. A good example of this technique being utilised in order to give the sky a dramatic appearance is Rembrandt’s 1633 painting entitled ‘The Storm on the Sea of Galilee’:

While Russ is, of course, an artist himself, just of a different kind, he is not referring to himself creating a painting here, but rather to exhaling clouds of weed smoke into the air from smoking Dutch strains of Cannabis.

Russ and Ed Sheeran first met at the lavish Italian restaurant Carbone located in the Lower Manhattan neighbourhood of New York City.

However, as this lyric makes clear, this is not the only restaurant at which the pair have spent time together. Gymkhana is another high-end restaurant and it’s much closer to home for Ed Sheeran, located in the ritzy Mayfair district of London’s West End. It’s perhaps no surprise that Ed Sheeran brought Russ to dine here because as well as Gymkhana earning itself two Michelin Stars since its inception in 2013, it is also Ed Sheeran’s favourite Indian restaurant.

In musical terms, Russ and Ed Sheeran linked up in 2022 to bring us the song ‘Are You Entertained’, singing and rapping about themes of self-made success, wealth and prosperity over an instrumental which came courtesy of British based producer and songwriter Fred again... Ed Sheeran later explained how his own voice was used as a sample to create part of the instrumental.

Although Russ sampled from Ed Sheeran’s ‘I See Fire’ for his 2014 song ‘We Should All Burn Together’, Are You Entertained marked the first time the pair had officially collaborated on a song together.

Russ also hinted at his trip to London and subsequent plans to collaborate with Ed Sheeran in April 2022 on the track ‘Back From London Freestyle’: “On the way to London for a legendary link up”. This was just three months prior to the release of Are You Entertained which came out in July of that same year.