Shadowboxer

Album: Generation Rx (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • The solemn lyrics on this song tackle mental health issues and emotional pain. Vocalist Joel Madden told Billboard that this song and "Self Care," which has a similar theme, are the tracks on Generation Rx of which he is most proud. He explained:

    "That's probably the most vulnerable I've ever been in opening up and sharing my own thoughts and perspectives. Those are very meaningful because it's not hiding behind any kind of anger, I'm not displacing it on anyone else. I'm actually just kind of opening up and sharing a personal thought, an experience without anything to hide behind. Those are probably the most meaningful just in terms of new territory, personally, of opening up on a record."
  • Good Charlotte released an accompanying music video directed by Jake Stark. The clip shows everyday people confronting their inner pain that is reflected back at them as they look at themselves the mirror. Joel Madden told The Independent that one shot which shows "a person looking in the mirror in a normal house that looks beautiful, clean, calm, collected" is contrasted with "the reverse where you're in a burned out abandoned house." This, he explained, is "a play on the song's lyric 'burn your life down.'"

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