Autopilot

There is a specific kind of numbness that sets in when you've been in survival mode for too long. It isn't sad. It isn't angry. It's just... nothing. You wake up, you go to work, you smile when you're supposed to smile, and you go back to sleep. You do all the right things, but you aren't actually there.

That is where "Autopilot" came from. I was sitting in my car in a grocery store parking lot, staring at the steering wheel, realizing I had no memory of driving there. My body was functioning perfectly, but my mind had completely checked out to protect itself from the exhaustion.

I realized I had been living my entire life that way for the past two years.

I wrote the chorus in that parking lot on the back of a receipt. The line "I hold it in till it starts to crack" was the anchor for the entire song. It was about the pressure of maintaining the illusion of normalcy.

When I brought it into the studio, we wanted the production to feel exactly like that state of mind: repetitive, driving, slightly claustrophobic, but with moments where the emotion tries to burst through the surface. The heavy, thumping bassline is meant to mimic a heartbeat that you're desperately trying to ignore.