Torture

Album: Old (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song finds Brown reflecting on his childhood struggles with nightmares caused by post-traumatic stress syndrome, the result of a childhood numbed by violence:

    "I feel like a prisoner of war
    Reacting sporadically to what the mind absorb
    Probably need a shrink, can't get a wink."

    "I can't sleep at night because I have these nightmares all the time," Brown explained to MTV News, breaking down the song. "I don't know if you can really consider them nightmares, but it'll be dreams of me being back in the day, as a 19-year-old, and I get so caught up in the dream that when I wake up, I'm so just happy to be where I'm at in my life. I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore. It gives me real bad anxiety."

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