Rising pop-goth singer Kailee Morgue traverses some dark territory on her new song, “Headcase,” but she does it with a wink, a wry smile, and a friend by her side. That friend is Hayley Kiyoko, who lends her vulnerable perspective to the new tune, which was inspired by Morgue’s struggle with bipolar disorder.
The song — which samples the teetering riff from The Pixies’ cult hit “Where Is My Mind?” — is a hazy trip through Morgue and Kiyoko’s minds, as they detail their seesawing emotions. Morgue casually cautions, “I’m not gonna let you in / Might take you down,” while Kiyoko pleads, “Love me, love me, never let me go.” They’re like two sides of the same coin, and they come together in totally relatable fashion on the catchy hook: “I’m a headcase, fuckin’ crazy / I’m a heartbreak, I warned you.”
Speaking to Paper about the new song, Kiyoko said, “When Kailee sent me this song I really connected with it because I was in a dark place of figuring out my mental health and feeling crazy. I felt exactly like the song, I was going in and out of losing my mind. That’s so relatable about the song, just feeling so crazy sometimes.”
Morgue added that she wanted “Headcase” to portray two alternating feelings and “that extreme teetering back and forth — of feeling super happy and then super distant.”
She continued, “I wanted it to be about how one person can feel that craziness and how it applies to the other people in their life. It’s about owning any mental issues or indecisiveness that others would view as crazy and being like ‘yeah that’s what I feel like right now.’ There’s not many situations where two queer women get to work together and represent that and own that narrative.”
