Everything Goes On

 

Whenever I play Porter Robinson's song "Everything Goes On", my friends see that the song is a collaboration with League of Legends, and this immediately colors their impression. A piece of me dies every time this happens because you don't have to know anything about League of Legends to enjoy this song. I personally know very little about the gameplay and lore surrounding League of Legends, yet "Everything Goes On" stands among my favorite songs of all time.

Despite its sparkly instrumentation and uplifting chords, "Everything Goes On" is a song about grief. The lyrics are from the perspective of someone who does not have much longer to live. The song opens with the chorus, where the singer tries to convince someone to forget about him after he is gone. The song tells a story about a time when the singer actually said the words in the chorus, and the verses flow from the singer attempting to justify those words, to later regretting them.

[Chorus]
Don't try to make yourself remember, darling.
Don't look for me, I'm just a story you've been told,
So let's pretend a little longer,
'Cause when we're gone, everything goes on.

The chorus presents the event that the verses of the song fill in the context for. I love this style so much. Funnily enough, it reminds me of the old Taylor Swift Speak Now and Fearless country-pop style of songwriting. For example, the chorus to "Mine" by Taylor Swift also describes a particular event ("Do you remember we were sitting there by the water?") which the surrounding verses provide the context for. In my post about the song "RPG" by the Japanese band Sekai no Owari, I also highlighted how that song opens with the chorus, which also describes an event for which verses provide the context ("The sky was a clear blue as we walked toward the sea..."). Porter Robinson is a big J-Pop fan, and he even invited Sekai no Owari to perform at one of his online streaming events during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it would not surprise me at all if "RPG" could have indirectly inspired "Everything Goes On".

[Verse 1]
Well, you were staring at the window,
And I said, "I wanna take you to the sea,
And when I'm better we'll do everything."
(I gotta stop making promises I can't keep.)

Even though the song was written for League of Legends, Porter Robinson drew on his personal experiences to write the song. In November 2016, while on tour with Madeon for "Shelter" (a song I have written about in the past), Porter's brother Mark was diagnosed with a type of cancer called Burkitt lymphoma. Fortunately, the cancer was treatable, and Mark survived, but those dark days still left a lasting impact on Porter Robinson and his music. In a Twitch stream in which he discussed the song, Porter explained that he views "Everything Goes On" as sung from the perspective of someone who is in the hospital. The first verse of the song portrays the singer in denial, which is the first of the well-known "five stages of grief". The singer pretends as if nothing is wrong: once he is "better", then they can do everything that they wanted to do, like go to the sea. In the last line, however, he snaps out of it. He realizes his promise that "we'll do everything" is one he cannot keep and implicitly apologizes for it.

[Pre-Chorus 1]
But if I was gone tomorrow, won't the waves crash on?
Is it selfish that I'm happy as we pass the setting sun?
Someday I'll be overcast, but you won't have to cry,
'Cause we'll do the grieving while I'm by your side.

This is the only time that this particular pre-chorus happens in the song, and it is so beautiful. The singer hints at the idea expressed in the title of the song: the appreciation that the world still persists even though individual lives may be fleeting ("... won't the waves crash on?"). The beauty of the sky is a recurring theme in Porter Robinson's work, and the imagery of the evening sky seems to say that, even though the singer may not have that much time left, he claims to feel content about the life that he lived ("Is it selfish that I'm happy as we pass the setting sun?"). By the end of the pre-chorus, it becomes clear that he is attempting to reassure the person he is singing to (and perhaps also himself) that everything is okay.

Everything is not okay. In a post on Twitter about the pre-chorus, Porter Robinson emphasized that "you can't really 'pre-grieve' anything", adding that much of this song is from the perspective of someone who is "in pain and is saying things they don’t mean, or can’t follow through on". The intent was the evoke "the feeling of when someone tries their best to comfort you, but what they say inadvertently makes it more painful". This context is the perfect transition into the chorus, which evokes the same feeling:

[Chorus]
I said:
"Don't try to make yourself remember, darling.
Don't look for me, I'm just a story you've been told,"
So let's pretend a little longer,
'Cause when we're gone, everything goes on.

In the chorus, the singer tries to claim that it would just be easier if the person he's singing to just forgets about him after he is gone. He is wrong. It is another example of something the singer saying something in an attempt to comfort someone, only to have the opposite effect. Prefixing the chorus with the words I said indicates that the words of the chorus should have quotation marks around it, something that Porter Robinson does again after the second pre-chorus, which we will soon discuss.

[Verse 2]
And I'm so scared of getting used to this,
All the vines that keep you tethered in your room.
Well, someday both of us are leaving here,
But for now, I'll just bring the sea to you.

The second verse evokes more imagery of a hospital. The last two lines hearken back to the first verse, providing a response to the singer's futile promise that he will take his friend to the sea: "Well, someday both of us are leaving here, but for now, I'll just bring the sea to you." In the stream discussing the song, Porter Robinson said that these lines are "kind of from the perspective of the other person":

I feel like it's one of the ways that we can cope with loss and grief and pain. You can spend your days reducing other people's suffering. That's something you can do: you can choose right now to go and make things worse for people, or you could, like, you could work full-time at an old-folks home, or you could volunteer at the hospital, [...] you could train a dog and get that dog certified to go meet people with cancer or whatever. There's a million ways that you can help, and I just think it's kind of amazing [...] When my younger brother was sick, that was something that made a really big difference: when he got visits from dogs in the hospital. [...]

We all know what it's like to suffer, and we all know what it's like to feel pain, and we also know what it's like to not suffer, and one thing that you can do with your time—you can make this choice right now—is to reduce other people's suffering. [...] This idea of bringing the sea to somebody—for now, you can't take yourself or me to the sea, so I'll just bring the sea to you—I think it's like, to a certain extent, grief, loss, suffering are all unavoidable, but they can be helped a little bit, and I think that's really special and kind of gives meaning.

The line "I'll just bring the sea to you" sounds initially like another empty promise—how could someone bring the sea to someone? But it isn't empty: it is a reaffirmation of the love, fidelity, devotion, and sacrifice that the other person feels towards the singer. Even though they do not have the ability to go to the sea themselves, being with each other and actively trying to reduce the other person's suffering—even just a little bit—makes up for it.

[Pre-Chorus 2]
Will you meet me in the daylight like we did before?
Then I felt you on my shoulder,
And you weren't suffering anymore.
You said, "I'm sorry that you worried,"
But don't apologize—
I told you to forget me, but you stayed by my side when I said:

In the Twitter thread about the song, Porter Robinson said that this second pre-chorus was difficult to write, explaining:

i struggled with the second prechorus FOREVER trying to find a meaning that i felt good about. i didn't want to end the song with a chorus that basically says, "it'd be easier if you just forgot about me". so the last prechorus does this —

it reframes the chorus by saying: "i told you to forget me, but you stayed by my side, when i said - 'don't try to make yourself remember etc etc' —"

it put the last chorus in quotation marks, as something the narrator once said, and is now apologizing for.

basically saying: "thanks for staying with me, even [though] i told you to forget all about me."

This last pre-chorus finalizes the singer's "character arc", if you will. In the first verse, the singer was in denial, trying to pretend like everything is going to be okay. In the second verse, that denial seems to give way to fear and depression, symbolized as the "vines that keep you tethered in your room". Finally, in this last pre-chorus, the singer arrives at the final stage of grief: acceptance, as well as gratitude for his friend who stayed by him, even though he tried to convince them to forget about him.

[Chorus]
"Don't try to make yourself remember, darling.
Don't look for me, I'm just a story you've been told,"
So let's pretend a little longer,
And when we're gone, everything goes on.

Porter Robinson delivers the final chorus with a triumphant finish. He puts extra emphasis on the word remember. As he mentioned, this last chorus is deliberately in quotation marks: he is repeating something he once said that he now regrets, and so he emphasizes the word remember to say that what he truly means is the opposite: you should try to make yourself remember; you should look for him; he's not just a story you've been told.

When I was in high school, my best friend developed anxiety about an idea called solipsism: the theory that the only thing you can really know for sure is that your own mind exists. It's something I wrote about on this blog back in high school. It can be a terrifying and immensely lonely thought process because if you just assume it's true and try to find reasons to disprove it, those reasons are hard to find. How can you really know that the world around you truly exists? After you die, will the world really go on without you? Porter Robinson responds with a resounding yes. His song asks us to appreciate the beauty in the fact that we are all here in this world together, and even long after we're gone, the world and everything in it will continue to exist, which makes it all the more imperative that we make the right choices now, so we can make that world just a little bit better for others. Someday all of us are leaving here, but for now, let's all bring the sea to each other.

Video I took of Porter Robinson performing "Everything Goes On" in Seattle, WA on Saturday, November 2, 2024