As part of covering ELLE’s September 2022 global issue, Adele has made a video that takes fans behind the lyrics for some of her best-known songs. But one of the most surprising things revealed in the video is that her #1 hit “Hello” isn’t about the heartbreak of a shattered romance … it’s about herself.

In the video, Adele is asked to talk about the meaning behind the lyrics “Hello from the outside/at least I can say that I’m tried/to tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart/but it don’t matter/it clearly doesn’t tear you apart anymore.”

“I hadn’t long had a baby when I wrote ‘Hello,’ and it was also on the 25 album, which was following 21, which just blew up … it was massive,” Adele recalls in the video. “So I guess I was a little bit of a stranger to myself in the way that my life had changed because of my career, but also becoming a mum.”

“I missed my friends and I missed my life before being a mum, before being famous, all of those things,” she continues. “And I feel like when you have a kid … it brings up a lot to do with your own parents, because you’re trying to be a parent … so it was very much inspired by that.”

And so, Adele reveals, “Hello” “was about my younger self. It was my older self talking to my younger self, like, ‘Who am I?’ I remember it very clearly. I don’t feel like that at all anymore, which is a relief!”

In the video, Adele also reminisces about writing “Easy On Me,” “Chasing Pavements,” “All I Ask” and “Someone Like You.”

 

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.