Adele – Easy On Me

The Shower Verse That Became A Letter To Her Son

Released on October 15, 2021, as the lead single from her fourth studio album 30, “Easy On Me” debuted at number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100 with only five hours of availability, then surged to number one the following week, becoming the largest jump to the top spot since Taylor Swift’s track in 2017. The song spent ten non-consecutive weeks at number one, tying with “Hello” as her longest-running chart topper. It broke Spotify’s record for most single-day streams with 19.7 million plays globally in its first 24 hours. The track reached number one in 30 territories and became Britain’s fastest-selling single of 2021 with 217,317 chart units in its first week. For a song about explaining divorce to her nine-year-old son, this was a return that shattered every comeback record imaginable.

The single won Best Pop Solo Performance at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards and Song of the Year at the 2022 Brit Awards, Adele’s third Album of the Year win at the Brits following 21 and 25. In the United States, it became the most-played song in radio history and the first track to be the most-added at five different formats in a single week. The UK first-week sales totaled 261,000, with the album 30 marking the biggest opening since Ed Sheeran’s Divide in 2017. Her son Angelo had asked her one devastating question that sent her into the studio. He looked at her and said he couldn’t see her. That moment changed everything.

Adele conceived the first verse while taking a shower, the words arriving fully formed in her mind. She had been recording conversations with Angelo on the advice of her therapist, trying to answer his questions about why she and his father Simon Konecki couldn’t stay together. Her friends kept telling her to go easy on herself, to not beat herself up about her decisions, and the phrase resonated so deeply she knew it had to be the heart of the song. She called producer Greg Kurstin, who had worked with her on “Hello” and three other tracks from 25. Kurstin would improvise on piano for hours while Adele formulated her thoughts, and when she started writing, he knew not to move or change anything. The entire song came together in one day.

Kurstin recorded and produced the track at his No Expectations Studios in Los Angeles, with engineers Julian Burg and Alex Pasco assisting. Kurstin played all the instruments himself, bass, kick drum, and piano, keeping the arrangement deliberately sparse to emphasize Adele’s vocals. String arrangements by David Campbell were recorded by Steve Churchyard at The Eastwood Scoring Stage in California. Tom Elmhirst mixed the song at Electric Lady Studios in New York with Matt Scatchell assisting, and Randy Merrill mastered it at Sterling Sound in New Jersey. Adele’s friends were initially unimpressed by an early snippet, but she claimed they appreciated her patience. After writing it, she didn’t write anything else for six months because she felt she’d already said everything.

The song appeared on 30, which spent six weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold over 1.8 million copies worldwide. The album title refers to Adele’s age when she left Konecki, though she was 33 when the song was released. Adele wanted to avoid releasing something bombastic like “Hello” that would catapult her to another level of fame she didn’t want again. The Target deluxe edition included a duet version with Chris Stapleton, marking Adele’s first official duet on her records. She had kept hearing a male harmony on the chorus and knew Stapleton’s voice would be perfect. The duet version landed at country radio on November 19, 2021.

Xavier Dolan directed the music video, which was filmed at the same Quebec house where the “Hello” video took place. The visual shows Adele leaving the house and driving down an empty road, inserting a cassette of the new single into the car stereo while sheets of music fly out the windows. The video reached 16 million views in nine hours and broke multiple records. Travis Barker released a rock ballad cover in January 2022. Keith Urban dedicated his acoustic guitar cover to Adele during a March 2022 show, calling her someone he absolutely adores as a performer and songwriter. Nandi Bushell, age 13, shared her cover in July 2023, noting it was her first video singing and playing piano simultaneously.

Angelo’s question haunted Adele for years. She told British Vogue that if she could reach the reason why she left, which was the pursuit of her own happiness, and if Angelo could see her in that happiness, then maybe she’d be able to forgive herself for dismantling his entire life. She wasn’t miserable in the marriage, but she would have been miserable if she hadn’t put herself first. Sometimes the hardest songs to write are the ones addressed to people who can’t fully understand them yet, letters written for a future when explanations might finally make sense. She recorded those conversations with her son and turned the pain into something he might listen to in his twenties or thirties and finally comprehend why his mother chose to walk away. That’s not a pop song. That’s a time capsule wrapped in a prayer.