“Family” is the latest addition to The Idol‘s soundtrack and it’s so emotional that it’s leaving fans in tears. The single tells the story of a family that doesn’t see eye to eye, so like The Migos, Snoop Dogg, Karol G, and Rock Mafia’s “My Family,” but the opposite. The song tells the story of a person from a broken home, who later finds a beautiful connection elsewhere.
“Voice like my father’s, when he screams, the house shakes / Dreams like my brother’s, oh, we pray for his sake / Hopes just like my mother’s, oh, they last ’til her wake,” Son sings in the second verse, listing the qualities of this fictional family. One of the touching moments is the way she accepts that her family just won’t work, even though her mother still holds out hope that it would.
The rest of the song goes on to describe how she craves solitude and hates hugs – probably a side effect of coming from a broken family. The bridge hints that Son – or the person she’s singing about – has found other people that can be the family her family couldn’t be for her.
The single is written by Son, The Weeknd, and MIKE DEAN and produced by The Weeknd, DEAN, and Sage Skolfield. Reflecting on the song’s composition, Son told HBO in an interview that the single “is our cult song, it’s our family song. I wrote that the day we were taking a break from shooting, and I was gonna go on a trip to France. I just quickly wrote that song, and I loved it. And I recorded it that night before we went to the airport. That’s about finding family in other places, in nature, in whatever you choose to be your family.”
She went on to add: “I loved singing it altogether as a family and the way we harmonized, I could tell it was hard for Abel not to start singing with us. It was special.”
A moment of inspiration. #TheIdol pic.twitter.com/aB4SJPxoFT
— HBO (@HBO) June 12, 2023
Like the show, the soundtrack is made up of songs that address the darker parts of our existence. For example, “Popular” describes a woman so obsessed with being famous she could kill for it, and “Double Fantasy” is a salacious song about an unhealthy relationship.
Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd are the main characters in The Idol, with Blackpink’s Jennie and Troye Sivan making an appearance. Shortly after the release of some of its episodes, the series was criticized for its grim depiction of Hollywood and its over-sexualized plot.
