Photography courtesy of Getty Images
Release the stress!
Date June 21, 2022
I tumbled out of bed this morning, poured myself a cup of ambition (à la Dolly Parton) and hit play on the new Beyoncé song, “Break My Soul,” only for her to tell me to get back into bed.
The genre-bending bop marks the start of the Queen B Renaissance, her seventh solo album. Due to drop July 29, the record comes more than six years after the release of the pop culture phenomenon that was Lemonade. And if the lyrics to “Break My Soul” are any indication of what’s to come, Beyoncé is ready to put down the baseball bat and get some rest.
“Now I just fell in love, and I just quit my job, I’m gonna find new drive, damn they work me so damn hard,” she sings. “Work by nine, then off past five, and they work my nerves, that’s why I cannot sleep at night.”
Beyoncé is in her anti-work era, and her new tune is painfully perfect for our current reality. Between the Great Resignation, our fear of a pending recession and our collective disillusionment under capitalism, we’re all working too damn hard. But unlike Dolly Parton’s 1980 classic “9 to 5,” Beyoncé does not want you to Girl Boss from five to nine.
Her advice? “Release ya anger, release ya mind, release ya job, release the time, release ya trade, release the stress, release the love, forget the rest.” Oh, Beyoncé…If only it were that easy!
Not Beyoncé telling me to quit my job.. Not after making me pay $50 for that mystery box pic.twitter.com/EXKxNDGXz6
— MBali (@TheJessieWoo) June 21, 2022
Obviously, even if the lyrics might persuade you to think otherwise, Beyoncé is not anti-capitalist (and she doesn’t exactly have a nine to five job). But she does understand burnout. After all, the multihyphenate’s been working since she was a child, and for all the accolades that hard work got her, it would seem that what she lost in the process was (in her own words) her mind.
So now, after taking some time for herself, Beyoncé is back, “sleeping real good at night” and building a new foundation for her future musical endeavours. As for the rest of us, quitting our day jobs isn’t really an option (how else will we afford those tour tickets?). But by the end of next month, we’ll have enough new music to dance away our troubles after hours.
Listen to “Break My Soul” by Beyoncé below.