Taking back her story. Miley Cyrus’ “Midnight Sky” lyrics are about her breakup from Liam Hemsworth and how she’s reclaiming her independence. In an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s “New Music Daily” on Thursday, August 13, Cyrus opened up about how her new song is inspired by her split from Hemsworth, who she’s was with from 2009 to 2019.
“Talking about ‘Midnight Sky,’ specifically, I felt like my story and my narrative had kind of been told for me over the past year,” Cyrus said. “Obviously, I went through an extremely public breakup and, even more than that, a divorce, and with someone that I had been with for 10 years. That narrative and that experience of 10 years was told for me by one day from the eyes of a helicopter.”
Cyrus and Hemsworth met on the set of The Last Song in 2009. The couple dated on and off for eight years until they tied the knot in Cyrus’ hometown in Tennessee in December 2018. However, after eight months of marriage, Cyrus and Hemsworth announced their separation in August 2019. They finalized their divorce in January 2020. Cyrus told Lowe that she felt “villainized” by the divorce after she dated the Hills: New Beginnings star Kaitlynn Carter soon after she and Hemsworth separated. (After her breakup from Carter, Cyrus went on to date Cody Simpson from October 2019 to August 2020. She confirmed her and Simpson’s breakup hours before the release of “Midnight Sky.”)
“I felt kind of villainized. I also felt like I kind of shut down, because it was kind of, respectfully, below me to engage with the press and the media at that time,” she told Apple Music. “It felt like I would rather be able to articulate this experience in a poetic way that also I can put back into my art. I never really have engaged. I’ve only played with the public and the perception in that way. So for this record, actually, the way that I even wrote ‘Midnight Sky’ was I was prepping to create a video for another song. I wrote and directed and conceptualized the video for ‘Midnight Sky,’ but it started because I was doing that with another song. Then Andrew Watt, my creative partner, came over and played me this track, and I scratched everything and said, ‘I’ve got to write this. This is the foundation of which I feel like I can lay my story on top of that.’”
In an interview with SiriusXM on Thursday, Cyrus also talked about how “Midnight Sky” is inspired the “stigma” that women often face after they divorce.
“Actually in ‘Midnight Sky,’ one of the lyrics that I’d ask everyone to kind of consider and kind of think about for themselves is the idea of ‘forever and ever, no more,’” Cyrus said. “You know, you asked me to kind of explain briefly what my song is about. And I think it’s my relationship with the stigma. That ‘forever,’ if it’s not successful or if you claimed something to be forever and you fail, then you’re a failure. And I just don’t think that. I think we’re kind of set up for devastation—in that, from the time we’re little kids, we’re taught to claim other humans as our best friends forever.”
She continued, “And you just don’t know who you’re going to be sitting with here right now. You never know who you’re going to evolve to be and who they’re going to evolve to be. So I think that we, especially as women in relationships, a lot of the time we can get villainized when ‘forever’ doesn’t happen. And I think that you’re just really setting yourself up to kind of be disappointed—and not from a bitter or resentful way, but from a realistic and logical standpoint, especially in modern society.”
Cyrus went on to tell SiriusXM that she could’ve never predicted her future, including her divorce, because of how much she’s changed over the years. “We’re changing and evolving and understanding ourselves from such a different perspective that it just feels like forever is definitely a big word, especially for someone young, especially as 3 years old, we’re like, ‘Oh, this is my best friend forever.’ It’s like, ‘You have no idea what Allie is going to become,’” she said.
Read Miley Cyrus’ “Midnight Sky” lyrics ahead.
Intro
La, la, la-la, la
Verse 1
Yeah, it’s been a long night and the mirror’s telling me to go home
But it’s been a long time since I felt this good on my own (Uh)
Lotta years went by with my hands tied up in your ropes (Your ropes)
Forever and ever, no more (No more)
Pre-Chorus
The midnight sky is the road I’m takin’
Head high up in the clouds (Oh, oh)
Chorus
I was born to run, I don’t belong to anyone, oh no
I don’t need to be loved by you (By you)
Fire in my lungs, can’t bite the devil on my tongue, oh no
I don’t need to be loved by you
See my lips on her mouth, everybody’s talkin’ now, baby
Ooh, you know it’s true (Yeah, yeah)
That I was born to run, I don’t belong to anyone, oh no
I don’t need to be loved by you (Loved by you)
Post-Chorus
La, la, la-la, la
Verse 2
She got her hair pulled back ’cause the sweat’s drippin’ off of her face (Her face)
Said, “It ain’t so bad if I wanna make a couple mistakes”
You should know right now that I never stay put in one place
Forever and ever, no more (No more)
Pre-Chorus
The midnight sky is the road I’m takin’
Head high up in the clouds (Oh, oh)
Chorus
I was born to run, I don’t belong to anyone, oh no
I don’t need to be loved by you (By you)
Fire in my lungs, can’t bite the devil on my tongue, oh no
I don’t need to be loved by you
See my lips on her mouth, everybody’s talkin’ now, baby
Ooh, you know it’s true (Yeah)
That I was born to run, I don’t belong to anyone, oh no
I don’t need to be loved by you (By you)
Bridge
Oh
I don’t hide blurry eyes like you
Like you
Chorus
I was born to run, I don’t belong to anyone, oh no
I don’t need to be loved by you (By you)
Fire in my lungs, can’t bite the devil on my tongue, you know
I don’t need to be loved by you
See his hands ’round my waist, thought you’d never be replaced, baby
Ooh, you know it’s true (Yeah)
That I was born to run, I don’t belong to anyone, oh no
I don’t need to be loved by you (Yeah)
Outro
La, la, la-la, la
La, la
You know it’s true, you know it’s true
Loved by you