Music with Meaning: “Stupid Deep” by Jon Bellion
What if who you hoped to be was always you?
Have you ever had a deep-rooted feeling about something in your life, big or small, and couldn’t find the words to express it, only for you to end up coming across someone else saying how you felt all along?
That’s what this song was for me.
When Jon Bellion was in the process of writing the song, he initially wanted to call the song “The Realization”, but after observing the way that the lyrics panned out, he decided to name it “Stupid Deep”. The song is an introspective, sentimental ballad that builds through a series of questions that Jon asks himself as it progresses. The instrumentation and production in both the studio and acoustic versions of the track create a feeling of being underwater — the same kind of imagery that is used in the music video as well. This atmosphere grows as the song goes on and Jon sings the chorus twice more, almost as if he’s drowning in these questions and ultimately coming up for air — coming to that realization that the song was initially named for.
As the song begins, Jon introduces the chorus, which serves as its anchor:
What if who I hoped to be was always me?
And the love I fought to feel was always free?
What if all the things I’ve done, yeah
Were just attempts at earning love? Yeah
’Cause the hole inside my heart is stupid deep
Stupid deep
These lines are perhaps the most important in the whole song; for me, these questions are ones that I’d never really asked myself. Within these lines, Jon’s questioning whether he’s tried to exhibit another persona instead of actively trying to become a better version of himself — and I think this is a feeling we all know well. Many of us have felt pressure in one way or another, big or small, to be someone or something we aren’t, instead of actively embracing who we are and working to grow. We see that feeling and that pressure play out in many places, from spaces just like Jon’s in the music industry all the way down to kids in school just trying to find friends. Jon continues by asking himself if the love he was trying to feel didn’t cost anything (this line, as well as a later one, have Christian undertones that I’ll delve into soon). This question seems to mean that Jon spent so much time looking for “love” or acceptance in the wrong places instead of seeing that there is already plenty of love he has from the people in his life that really matter. In the same way that we find ourselves chasing after personas instead of embracing ourselves, we also find ourselves chasing after what we think love, acceptance, and belonging are from the wrong people and places, instead of cherishing the love we already receive from those we are in community and relationship with like friends, family, significant others, mentors, and role models.
For me, though, these next lines hit the hardest:
What if all the things I’ve done, yeah
Were just attempts at earning love? Yeah
’Cause the hole inside my heart is stupid deep
Stupid deep
As I explained earlier, lots of us find ourselves trying to find love and acceptance in the wrong places. However, I think another sad reality that’s connected to this is the fact that we think we must earn love from others. I think a lot of that has to do with our understanding or interpretation of “love”, especially depending on how we grew up understanding or interpreting love. For some of us, love looks like people being happy to have us around. For others, love looks like people rarely ever being angry with us. Maybe it looks like an absence of conflict. Despite all this, love is more than just a feeling, or the way other people seem to feel about us — it’s a decision, a choice, and an action that manifests itself in so many ways. When we fail to remember that love is a multidimensional thing and it’s not something we can force, we lose ourselves trying to get it. We even fail to engage in love for ourselves. We go so far to get what we think is love from others that we become unrecognizable to ourselves in the process, or we change in ways that we don’t want to. Ultimately though, so much of this comes from the fact that we have a deep need for love and connection as human beings. It’s baked into who we are. In the ‘The Making of “Stupid Deep”’ video from Jon’s documentary for his second album, Glory Sound Prep, he says that “Maybe the reason I’m a successful artist is the hole in my heart is the deepest, and I need the most attention — I need the most affirmation from the world.” Our need for love and acceptance is important, but we must be intentional and careful about what we perceive love to be and remind ourselves not to compromise who we are to find it.
After the song starts introducing more musical elements, Jon goes into the verse:
What if where I’ve tried to go was always here?
And the path I’ve tried to cut was always clear?
Why has life become a plan, yeah
To put some money in my hand?
When the love I really need is stupid cheap?
Stupid cheap
This verse also really hits hard and introduces the next set of questions Jon is pondering over. Whether we’re young or old, we often question where exactly it is we’re supposed to be going. As a college student myself, there are many situations and scenarios where I’m unsure of what it is I should be doing, or where I need to be heading, whether it’s as small as trying to figure out what classes to take, or as large as trying to pinpoint what I want my major to be, and how I plan to make it work after college. We might try everything in the book to steer our lives in the direction we want, but as important as it is to think about the future, Jon seems to be posing the question, “What if the point isn’t to spend so much time making plans, but to instead take advantage of our present moment?” We spend so much time imagining what will happen next that we forget to enjoy the gift of existing now. Spending time in gratitude for where we are can even help us find the path we need to go on; in some instances, we may be surprised that it was the one we were travelling along all this time.
The next two lines are some of my favorites in the whole song; they really address one of the most relevant things we all struggle with: the incessant feeling that we need more, especially when it comes to money. It’s not hard to understand why any of us feel this way; we live in a world where so much is tied to how much money we have — the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the house we live in, and many more things. This feeling only gets worse when we see companies advertising their newest offerings, people flaunting their expensive pieces in Instagram photos, or we find ourselves thinking, “If only I just had ____” after comparing what we have to what someone else possesses. At some point, then, life becomes less and less about impacting others and finding fulfillment and more about increasing our share in life.
However, the line after these two suggests an antidote: love. Jon describes this love as “stupid cheap”. This line seems to have two meanings. Jon has acknowledged his Christian faith in a number of his songs, and this one is no exception. Christians believe that Jesus’ sacrifice and the salvation and spiritual freedom it results in, though it came at the cost of his life, is completely free for all people to accept. Jesus’ death and resurrection, in the eyes of believers, is the ultimate demonstration of God’s love, and it is a free gift to any who choose to believe; there is nothing that anyone can do to earn it. As a Christian, Jon is pondering the idea that maybe all of these things he’s done to find love or gain more wealth as an artist and as an individual is rendered completely unnecessary in light of God’s love for him.
For people who do share this belief, these words make the song very meaningful. Even outside a Christian context, though, these lines mean a lot too. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes we go to great lengths to earn what we think “love” is, and it may come at the cost of compromising on who we are. However, the love we really need comes from the people who we feel like we can be ourselves around. It comes from the people who choose to accept us with all our hopes, dreams, fears, strengths, weaknesses, flaws and all. It comes from people who inspire us to strive to be the best we can be. It comes from those who never fail to remind us of our worth, no matter how frequently we forget. I truly believe that love isn’t meant to be earned by going to drastic lengths…it’s meant to be given and received freely. Of course, we have to be careful and intentional about it, but love is something we are all meant to experience, free of charge.
Jon repeats the chorus twice more, but along with the breakdown and buildup of the music alongside it, it seems that each time Jon sings it (especially with the background vocals in the first of these two) he is having the realization he originally named the song for. The first time he sings this chorus towards the end, it seems that he is slowly realizing that all the things he previously valued didn’t matter at all — and that maybe all the things he wished to have, the things that he really needed, were right there with him all along. As he sings it for the very last time with the production and the instrumentation reaching its climax, it sounds like Jon is drowning (just like he is in the music video, funny enough) and desperately trying to come up for air, to break free of the weight that’s dragging him down — the weight of trying to earn love from all the wrong people and places and forsaking fulfillment and genuine connection for more wealth.
This realization Jon comes to in the song is the same realization I came to while listening; this song really resonated with me. Thinking about all the choices I’ve made, the successes and failures I’ve had, the good and bad decisions I’ve made, I realized some of those choices were rooted in a desire to earn love and acceptance, when I should have considered the love that I already had. This song serves as a reminder for me not to lose myself trying to gain acceptance and belonging in the wrong places, or to constantly worry about the future and keep trying to get more and more; rather, I need to cherish the love I receive and do the best that I can to share it with others, and to allow it to help me grow in love for myself.
If you can’t tell by now already, “Stupid Deep” is one of my favorite songs. It’s a song I think everyone should listen to; the questions Jon asks in it are questions we should all ask ourselves, and they really focus on the core of who we are as human beings. Between the acoustic and the studio version, my favorite is the acoustic — I feel that it captures the emotion of the lyrics really well. Whichever version you listen to, though, it’s a beautiful and important song. It’s a reminder that the holes in our hearts, as deep as they are, are meant to be filled with love — the kind of love that’s free…the kind of love that makes you wonder if who you hoped to be was always you.
Thank you all for reading my second “Music with Meaning” piece. Once again, I apologize for sharing it so late. 🤦🏾♂️ This one was a bit tough to write, as it took me a while to figure out what to say. Thankfully enough, I was able to figure it out. I hope you enjoyed reading this and that it impacted you. It’s really a blessing to be able to share what music means to me with you all. Stay tuned for the next one!
Peace and love,
Manny ✌🏾💙
P.S. You can watch both videos for “Stupid Deep” here, as well as Jon’s “Making Of” video for the song.
