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Adele · S7 E1
The Divorce
Her marriage to Simon Konecki ends in 2019 after three years. The album she writes about it will take two more years to finish.
A woman sits alone in a rented house in Los Angeles, surrounded by moving boxes, pressing record on her phone to leave a voice memo for her six-year-old son. She is trying to explain why daddy doesn't live here anymore.
Adele, "Easy On Me" (official music video, 2021). Directed by Xavier Dolan, who also made the "Hello" video six years earlier, the visual picks up where that story left off. Adele drives through a rural landscape with sheet music scattering from the car windows, leaving a house behind. Same director, similar setting, but this time she's the one choosing to go.
Easy On Me
Co-written with Greg Kurstin, who also wrote "Hello" with her, "Easy On Me" is built on a simple piano progression and a vocal that sounds like it was recorded in a single breath. The production stays deliberately bare: no drums until the final chorus, just her voice and the piano making a case for forgiveness. Listen for how she phrases "go easy on me" in the chorus. There's no belting, no power note. She's asking, not demanding.
The Making of 30
Adele begins writing in 2018, but the sessions take on a different shape after the separation. She works with Greg Kurstin, Max Martin, Shellback, Inflo, and Ludwig Goransson across studios in Los Angeles and London. The album becomes a real-time document of a divorce: the guilt, the anger, the loneliness, and the conversations with a child who deserves an explanation.
“"I was just going through the motions and I wasn't happy. Neither of us did anything wrong. It just wasn't right for me anymore."”
TAP TO REVEAL: What hidden audio on "My Little Love" almost didn't make the album?
Who directed both the "Hello" and "Easy On Me" music videos?
My Little Love
From 30 (2021). The third track on the album and the one Adele has called the hardest to release. Between the sung verses, you hear real voice memos: Adele talking to Angelo about the separation, and Adele alone, recording herself through anxiety attacks. It's not a song designed to be enjoyed. It's a document of a mother trying to hold it together for her child.
My Little Love, Adele (2021)
Read the lyrics while you listen. The voice memos are transcribed between the verses. You can feel the difference between the sung performance and the raw, unscripted recordings. The line where she tells Angelo she loves him more than anything is where most people have to stop reading.
30, by the Numbers
Album 30 debuts at number one in over thirty countries. But Adele's next move isn't a world tour. It's a Las Vegas residency, and the night it's supposed to begin, she tears it all down.
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