The meaning of the song
In the caption for the music video Grace described the song like this:
"What's left of me is a track about feeling as though you’re a breathing legacy of a fallen relationship. Everything about me is, in some way, either directly or indirectly, caused by you. An inescapable touch, acid-burned kiss, I’ll never be the girl I was before. It’s a robbery of identity."
On Instagram, Grace wrote:“
”This song means a lot to me. I had been feeling the presence of a past person so deeply that I realized they were embedded into who I will be going forward, forever. What's left of me, as in, how is my individuality defined excluding you? Am I now this morphed figure of the both of us? Am I now just a breathy legacy of a fallen relationship? What about me is left untampered by you.”
In an
interview with Billboard, Grace explained that "What's Left of Me" had many more layers than "Call it What You Want":
"I was going through a breakup, and I was realizing the butterfly effect of how changed I was from this relationship. I wondered if I would choose the same sweater in the morning. Would I put my right foot or my left foot first? And what part of my skin is even still mine, and left from before this relationship? I am constantly now a shared piece of you. That was really intense. And there is an uncomfortability to that because it’s done; you will be a part of me forever, and you have changed me. I am not afraid to be emotional at all. I am like a little fucked up, I kind of love being in pain, I love it so much, I feel so much like main character and inspired.”
She further elaborated in the meaning of the song in an Interview with Travis Mills on Apple Music: “What’s Left Of Me is an interesting song. It’s not exactly a sad song; it’s like a sickness, and there is like a disdain for it and an anger about it. My favorite line of the song, that I am very proud of, and that I think does the feeling of what I just said justice, is ‘but I feel you watch me while I sleep, and you’re the grease in my hair and the rott in my teeth. And there is blood on your hands, I am sorry that I bleed’. It’s very much like – why, why, why, why?
I was going through this breakup, and it’s so heavy on my mind that I have this realization that it is infecting every single decision in my entire life, for better or for worse. But the fact that you live there rent-free is not fair, and I don’t like that that is not my choice. And so it is ‘What’s left of ME?’ Who is this fusion of us? And what if I don’t want that? What If I want ME? – you took it!”
(Apple Music interview , posted online on
16 Oct 2024
The writing process and meeting her co-writer Tiffany
And then I weirdly met this girl, Tiffany, in Brooklyn. And we kept running into each other. And she is actually a writer and an artist herself; what the hell are the odds? And then what are the odds that we are both going through a breakup, with like practically the same guy? We have literally the same story, and we really bonded on it. Anyway, one day, we were hanging out, and JUST for fun, this was not arranged, label office[ial], we just started vibing on this song together. And then, when we wrote What’s Left Of Me.
(Apple Music interview with Travis Mills, posted online on
16 Oct 2024)
How she met the producer Jack Riley
We got the first glimpse of the song on
October 22, 2023, when Grace posted a picture in an IG story of parts of a handwritten draft of the lyrics. The song was produced that month at co-writer and producer Jack Riley's flat in New York. It appears that Grace got to know him through Tiffany. Jack writes in an
Instagram post:
"One of my favorite songs I’ve had the pleasure of working on, recorded in the little NYC apartment last October!! I met Tiffany from a TikTok comment and I think they met at a coffee shop, and now this exists?? Thank you, Grace and Tiffany, for trusting me with this; I’m so so happy with how it turned out :)"
About the music video
In an interview with Eric Alper on SiriusXM, Grace explained how she had followed her usual process of being very involved in the concept for the music video for
“Call It What You Want” but had let her new label; Pulse be much more involved in the creative side on “What’s Left of Me”.
An
Instagram post from Pechuga Vintage in LA, gave more information on the red dress Grace wore in some scenes in the video. The red corset was a Vivienne Westwood red satin 2018 corset. They added: "Fun fact : the style of corset that Grace wears first appeared in Westwood’s 1987 ‘Harris Tweed’ collection, the corset was named ‘the Statue of Liberty’ due to the way it transformed the wearer’s posture."
