Words by Emma Marchetti
With his fourth studio album Idols out on June 20th and the second edition of his very own music festival, Bludfest (speaking of, take a look at our Bludfest Year 2 Live Review if you haven’t yet), singer Yungblud has surely been under the spotlight for the past few weeks at least. His last single Zombie, the third and final one from the new album, is currently his most popular track on Spotify, and the music video starring Florence Pugh is also a huge hit.
The song’s debut dates back to March 2025, when the artist first performed it live at London’s Scala. When talking about Zombie, he declared that the ballad talked about “feeling you’re ugly, and learning to battle that”, in relation to his own struggle with body dysmorphia and eating disorders. He also revealed, however, that the initial inspiration for it came from his grandmother, who Yungblud states “became a different person” after facing serious injury. All of these experiences stimulated the Doncaster singer to write about the feeling of being at our worst and desperately wanting love and comfort, while simultaneously shutting people out because of fear; just like the rest of the album, Zombie deals with the delicate theme of self-love, voicing the thoughts of those of us struggling with mental and physical health, and asking for help on their behalf. It is for this reason that Yungblud wanted the music video to pay homage to NHS nurses, who constantly see people at their worst and walk them through those scary times. Watch this behind the scenes video to know more:
From a lyrical standpoint, Yungblud especially uses two literary devices to properly convey the feeling of pain and desperation of a person in such a situation: conditional sentences and repetition. You can find similar techniques in famous songs like Beyonce’s If I Were A Boy, a very clear example of conditional lyric writing, or boygenius’s Not Strong Enough, known for its devastating “always an angel, never a God” repetition.
Of course there is no need for me to tell you that a conditional sentence is a sentence with two clauses in which one expresses the result of the other, but what I can tell you is what their use is in literature and lyric writing. Within these contexts, conditional sentences usually add layers of complexity and emotional depth by exploring possibilities, impossible realities, what could and could not have been. In Zombie, they display the sense of instability and uncertainty derived from the song’s central dilemma, from wanting love and support while also pushing others away. Combined with the affirmative sentence type used in the pre-choruses and first half of chorus, conditionals provide a strong contrast to further intensify the emotional impact of the lyrics, which reaches its peak with the questions contained in the last part of the chorus. Songwriting God Pat Pattison, Berklee professor and author of Writing Better Lyrics and others, believes changing sentence type to be the lyrical equivalent of a key change in terms of emotional effect, and I would say this song constitutes a brilliant example!
On top of that, those impactful last questions are enriched not only by a poignant simile, looking like a zombie, which helps us visualise the pain the speaker is going through and empathize with it, but also by as many as two different types of repetition! Take a look at the chorus lyrics:
Oh I know that I can’t live without you
But this world will keep turning if you do
Would you even want me, looking like a zombie?
Would you even want me, want me, want me?
Notice how the last two lines begin with the very same phrase? That is a type of repetition known as anaphora, the repetition of one or more words at the start of consecutive sentences. Anaphora is usually utilised to reinforce connection and continuity between sentences, as well as spotlight the centrality of the repeated words. In my opinion, however, the true star of the show is the second type, that immediate repetition of the words want me at the end. Immediate repetition is called epizeuxis, and it is a tool often used to add emphasis: when we repeat something over and over, the original meaning tends to escalate, sounding more intense, desperate, necessary even. This impression is exactly the one the artist wants to give, so much so that he also makes use of epizeuxis in parts of the verses, like the lines:
If I were to talk about the words
They would hurt, they would hurt,
They do indeed hurt, don’t they? But Yungblud knew exactly what his songwriting was doing there… and now you do too!
LDN 