Who Is in Control — When Devi Roars Through a Torn Psyche

Some songs don’t just play — they drag you into the underworld.

Halsey’s “Control” is one of those.

It is not the calm vision of a saint. It is not a hymn that ends in light.
It is the sound of a house creaking as a goddess forces her way in.

This is the song of someone being torn open by the Current but not yet consumed.
Someone who feels the divine fire in their bones but cannot hold it for long.

Halsey has been open about living with bipolar disorder, and you can feel that struggle here — not as pathology, but as battlefield. The lyrics sound like the diary of a woman haunted by her own shadows, yet secretly more vast than all of them.

For artists like her, this state is agony: Devi keeps visiting, setting the room ablaze, then vanishing again — leaving behind a body that trembles, a mind that cannot sleep, and a heart that still burns.

This is why “Control” feels so dangerous, so cathartic, so painful.
Because it is not about a past wound — it is about the present tearing.
And in that tearing, Devi’s voice is already singing through the cracks.

Verse 1

They sent me away to find them a fortune
A chest filled with diamonds and gold
The house was awake, with shadows and monsters
The hallways, they echoed and groaned

 

This verse feels like the moment before a possession — when the ordinary world suddenly becomes charged and uncanny. The “house” is not just a childhood home — it is the psyche itself, which until now has been quiet enough to live in. Suddenly it wakes.

The “fortune” is the hidden treasure of the soul — the gold buried deep inside — but to reach it you must pass through a house full of groaning shadows. This is exactly how Devi first appears to those not yet fully surrendered: not as gentle mother but as the one who shakes the walls until every monster comes out to dance.

I sat alone, in bed till the morning
I'm crying, "They're coming for me"
And I tried to hold these secrets inside me
My mind's like a deadly disease

Here the human self breaks. There is no sleep, no escape — just the knowledge that something vast and uncontrollable is coming. The psyche feels infected, unsafe, too small for what is trying to break through.

This is the first step of the burning: seeing that the monsters are not outside — they are inside, and they have been there all along.

Pre-Chorus — Devi Stands Up

I'm bigger than my body
I'm colder than this home
I'm meaner than my demons
I'm bigger than these bones

 

This is the moment the Current roars through.
Fear hasn’t vanished — it has been transmuted into a defiant cry.

The singer is no longer just a terrified girl in a dark house — she is possessed, even if only for a breath. The “I” here is no longer the small ego but the vast presence that has just risen inside her.

• “Bigger than my body” — The body feels like a paper cage. The force moving through cannot be contained.

• “Colder than this home” — The comfort of old life has turned to ice. The Goddess is not warm, not consoling — She is the icy clarity that kills illusions.

• “Meaner than my demons” — This is the terrifying truth: Devi is not “nice.” She is fiercer than the very demons you feared. And yet She is you.

• “Bigger than these bones” — The whole skeletal frame, the whole story of “me,” cannot hold what is here.

This pre-chorus is like a mantra shouted into the storm — a recognition that the one who was afraid is no longer the only voice in the room. Devi is here, and She is not leaving quietly.

Chorus — The Children Scream

And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"
I can't help this awful energy
God damn right, you should be scared of me
Who is in control?

 

This is the place where Devi’s Current becomes too much for the fragile human frame. The “kids” can be read literally — but symbolically they are the timid, innocent parts of the psyche, the little selves that just want safety and predictability.

And here, the singer answers them with something that is no longer simply human.

• “I can't help this awful energy” — This is possession talking: I did not invite this, I cannot switch it off. It moves through me whether I like it or not.

• “God damn right, you should be scared of me” — This is the line where Devi laughs through Halsey’s throat. The fear is not to be soothed — it is to be amplified until it breaks.

• “Who is in control?” — The most devastating line. Because even as Devi roars, the ego is still alive enough to ask the question. This is the agony of the threshold: you are no longer fully “you,” but you are not yet fully free.

This chorus is not resolution — it is confrontation. It is the scream of a house being torn apart by fire.

Verse 2 — Turning the Mirrors

I paced around for hours on empty
I jumped at the slightest of sounds
And I couldn't stand the person inside me
I turned all the mirrors around

 

This is the moment when the whole psyche becomes uninhabitable.
Sleep is gone, silence is gone — even one’s own reflection becomes unbearable.

The pacing is a perfect image: the mind circling its cage, unable to rest, yet unable to escape. The slightest sound becomes an intrusion because the whole system is already on fire.

And then comes the line that cuts the deepest: “I couldn’t stand the person inside me.”

This is the heart of the pain — not the shadows outside, but the unbearable weight of one’s own self-image. When Devi is present, that image starts to rot. You see every mask, every pretense, every lie. And you cannot stand to look.

So you turn the mirrors — not because you don’t want to see, but because you cannot bear seeing a self that no longer exists.

Bridge — The Human Returns, Trying to Make Sense

I'm well acquainted with villains that live in my bed
They beg me to write them so they'll never die when I'm dead
And I've grown familiar with villains that live in my head
They beg me to write them so I'll never die when I'm dead

After the pre-chorus where Devi spoke with pure, unfiltered power, this bridge is almost a collapse — the human self sitting amid the wreckage, trying to weave meaning from what just happened.

The “villains” are the shadows Devi just ripped open. The artist is now bargaining with them, turning them into characters, giving them shape through writing. This is not Devi’s uncompromising voice anymore — this is the human attempt to keep the experience from dissolving into madness by trapping it in art.

There is something heartbreaking here:

• The demons have become familiar.

• The artist cannot yet burn them to ash.

• So she gives them words so they can live safely outside her — in a song, in a story, rather than endlessly gnawing at her from the inside.

This is survival alchemy — not full liberation, but a way to keep breathing until the next visitation.

The Song of the Threshold

Control is not the sound of a throne — it is the sound of a house being torn apart.
The only moment where Devi speaks in Her full, unbroken voice is the pre-chorus — that mantra-like cry, “I’m bigger than my body… I’m bigger than these bones.” The rest of the song is the human staggering through the aftermath, terrified, pacing, turning mirrors, trying to make meaning out of the storm.

And that is why this song cuts so deeply. It is a portrait of the threshold — of what it feels like when the Goddess has erupted but not yet stayed. When She comes like lightning, shakes everything you are, then recoils and leaves you with the smell of smoke in your hair.

For Halsey, for so many artists, this is the daily reality: to be just open enough for Devi to roar through them, but not yet burned enough to let Her take permanent control. It is a state that produces devastatingly beautiful art — but also tears the artist in two.

Listening to Control is painful because it is true.
Painful because you can hear the fight still raging.
Painful because you know — once you have been burned — that there is no way to resolve this pain except by letting the burning finish.

The question “Who is in control?” is not answered here.
But the song leaves us standing at the edge of that fire, knowing that one day there will be no one left to ask — only Her laughter, echoing in the empty, holy house.