You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishikesh Herway.

One note before we get started, this episode contains explicit language and also a mention of suicide.

If you or someone you love is having thoughts of suicide, confidential help is available for free.

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

You can also text the Crisis Text line, just text hello to 741-741.

There's also a comprehensive list of international crisis lines on Wikipedia, and we'll link to that in the show notes.

Okay, here's the episode.

Bacar is a singer and songwriter from London.

In 2018, he put out his first release, Bad Kid.

A year later, he put out the EP, Will You Be My Yellow?

In this September, he's releasing his second full-length album, Halo.

One of Bacar's tracks from the EP and the upcoming album is a song called Hellenback,

which went to number one on Billboard's Triple A charts and eventually went platinum.

For this episode, Bacar told me how he wrote Hellenback and all the unexpected twists and turns it took.

My name is Bacar.

The story starts in 2018.

I think there was this longing in my life in general.

Basically in London, around that time, my friends were coming to me.

My name is Bacar.

The story starts in 2018.

I think there was this longing in my life in general.

...