Demi Lovato still can't believe no one realised the song she recorded four days before her 2018 overdose was a cry for help.
The 27 year old singer will make her musical comeback at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night (26Jan20), when she will perform the track in question, Anyone, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and she tells Apple Music host Zane Lowe it's clear to her she was trying to reach out to those who cared for her when she wrote it.
"I just want to go up there and tell my story and I have three minutes to do so," she tells Lowe. "I'm just going to do the best that I can. It's only telling a fraction of my story, but it's still a little bit, and it's enough to kind of show the world where I've been.
"This song was written and recorded actually very shortly before everything happened... I almost listen back and hear these lyrics as a cry for help. You listen back to it and you kind of think, 'How did nobody listen to this song and think, Let's help this girl!'
"I even think that I was recording it in a state of mind where I felt like I was OK, but clearly I wasn't."
Lovato wishes she could go back in time to help herself: "I was singing this song and I didn't even realise that the lyrics were so heavy and emotional until after the fact," she explains. "About a week after I had been in the hospital and I was finally awake, I just remember hearing back the songs I had just recorded and thinking, 'If there's ever a moment where I get to come back from this, I want to sing this song'."
And while Anyone will help fans understand where she was at the lowest point in her life, Demi reveals there is a second song coming out in 2020 that will really open up about just how she felt.
"With the next song that I have coming out, I think I tell more of the story," she adds. "With this (Anyone), it just kind of tells you a little bit about where I was right before and right afterwards."
And with the Grammys upcoming and a performance of the U.S. National Anthem at the Super Bowl a week later, Lovato tells Lowe she is taking precautions to make sure her mental state is good.
"Something that I've dealt with in the past is, like, having these really incredible experiences like the Grammys or a tour or concerts or things like that, and I have to be aware of like, 'OK, I'm going to crash because my adrenaline is going to go all weekend, and then I'm going to have this performance (and) whether it goes great or not, my adrenaline is going to come crashing down come Monday morning'.
"I've talked to my team about this, like, 'Hey, we should be cautious. I might crash on Monday. Let's take precautions, so maybe I do more meditating on Monday... Maybe I have more therapy or support'.
"It's important to plan ahead, so that come Monday after the Grammys, I'm not sitting there, like, twiddling my thumbs like, 'OK, what am I doing with my life now? Where do I get this from? How can I beat that high?' Just be prepared."
