Stay

The happiest-sounding song about falling apart

Play "Stay" in a crowded room and people start moving almost immediately. The tempo races along at roughly 170 beats per minute, the synthesizer line glitters like neon on wet pavement, and the chorus arrives so quickly that you barely have time to settle in before you are singing along. It was one of the defining sounds of the second half of 2021, the song that leaked out of car windows, gym speakers and countless TikTok clips as the world tried, haltingly, to reopen after lockdown.

And yet if you slow down and actually listen to what the two voices are saying, the mood flips entirely. This is not a celebration. It is a plea from someone who has messed up again, who is admitting he says things he does not mean and does things he cannot undo, and who is terrified that the person he loves has finally reached the end of her patience. The music sprints because the narrator is running, from his own mistakes, from loneliness, from the silence that would follow if she walked out.

That tension between bright surface and anxious core is the secret engine of "Stay." It is why the song felt so oddly perfect for its moment, and why it has outlasted many of the hits it shared the charts with.

A teenager from Sydney and a pop veteran from Ontario

The Kid LAROI, born Charlton Howard in 2003, grew up in and around the inner-city Sydney neighbourhoods of Redfern and Waterloo, areas with deep Aboriginal community roots; LAROI is of Kamilaroi heritage, and his stage name is a nod to that ancestry. His childhood was, by his own account, unstable, with periods of moving between homes and family upheaval. He started making music as a young teenager, uploading tracks online and catching the attention of Australian hip-hop circles before he was old enough to drive.

His big break came through the late Juice WRLD, the Chicago rapper whose emo-tinged melodic style hugely influenced a generation of young artists. Juice WRLD reportedly took LAROI under his wing after meeting him during an Australian tour, bringing him on the road and into the Grade A Productions orbit. When Juice WRLD died in December 2019, LAROI lost both a mentor and a close friend, and that grief shaped his first major release, the mixtape F*ck Love, an album full of heartbreak and emotional raw nerves.

Justin Bieber, by contrast, needed no introduction. Discovered on YouTube as a child in Stratford, Ontario, he had already lived several careers by 2021: teen idol, tabloid lightning rod, tropical-pop hitmaker, and, with the albums Changes and Justice, a more reflective adult artist openly discussing faith, mental health and his marriage to Hailey Bieber. He had spent years publicly reckoning with the consequences of growing up famous too fast. In a sense, he had already lived through the exact emotional crisis that "Stay" describes.

The pairing was a passing of the torch in miniature. LAROI was the internet-native newcomer, Bieber the elder statesman who had been the internet-native newcomer a decade earlier. Both had been teenage phenomena; both had struggled with how fame collided with their private lives.

How the track came together

"Stay" was reportedly built by a heavyweight team. Charlie Puth, the singer-songwriter famous for his perfect pitch and his habit of dissecting chord progressions on social media, is credited among the producers and writers alongside Omer Fedi, Blake Slatkin and the Norwegian producer Cashmere Cat (Magnus Høiberg), with additional writing credits shared by others. Puth reportedly teased fragments of the shimmering synth riff online before the song was released, and fans who caught those clips felt they had been let in on a secret.

The song was released on 9 July 2021 as a single and later appeared on F*ck Love 3: Over You, the expanded edition of LAROI's mixtape. Its retro-futurist sound, a mix of 1980s-style synth-pop and modern trap-influenced vocal phrasing, drew immediate comparisons to The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights," which had dominated the charts the previous year. Like that song, "Stay" used a breathless tempo and synth gloss to wrap up deeply uneasy feelings.

The UK and US connection

For British listeners, "Stay" became one of the omnipresent songs of summer 2021, a period marked by "Freedom Day," the reopening of clubs and festivals, and a collective sense of shaky exhilaration. It reportedly climbed to number two on the UK Singles Chart, kept from the top spot during a long stretch dominated by Ed Sheeran's "Bad Habits," another fast, synth-driven song about doing things you know you should not. The two tracks sat side by side for weeks, almost like a matched pair describing the nervy, slightly reckless energy of a country stepping back into nightlife.

In the United States, the song went even further. It topped the Billboard Hot 100, reportedly spending seven non-consecutive weeks at number one, and it went on to become one of the biggest streaming hits of the decade so far. For LAROI, it was a first US chart-topper; for Bieber, it extended an extraordinary run of number ones across three different decades of his life.

What the song is really saying

The lyrics of "Stay" unfold as a back-and-forth between two narrators who sound like the same person split into two moods. Both voices are speaking to a partner who has every reason to leave.

LAROI opens with an admission that he has done wrong, that he keeps doing it, and that he cannot seem to stop. There is a striking honesty in how he frames it: he is not making excuses, but describing himself as someone who acts on impulse and only later recognises the damage. He hints that he has burned through her trust more than once and that she has heard his apologies so often they have lost their meaning.

The chorus is the emotional pivot. Instead of promising to change, the narrator essentially confesses that he does not know how to be better, that he will probably let her down again, and then asks her to stay regardless. That is a startling thing to put at the centre of a pop song. Most love songs either celebrate devotion or mourn its end. "Stay" lives in the uncomfortable middle space where someone knows they are not worthy of the patience they are asking for, and asks anyway, because the alternative is being alone with themselves.

Bieber's verse adds another layer. He sings as someone looking back on a pattern, aware of how his choices have hurt people, wrestling with the idea that he keeps trying to fix things and keeps getting it wrong. Coming from an artist whose personal struggles had played out so publicly, the verse carries an extra weight. Many listeners heard it as Bieber reflecting on his younger, more chaotic years, though the song never names anything specific.

Taken together, the two verses create a portrait of codependency and self-sabotage. The partner is the anchor; the narrator is the storm. He needs her to hold on precisely because he cannot hold himself together. It is needy, flawed and, in its own way, deeply human. The song does not judge its narrator, and it does not resolve his problem. It simply captures the moment of desperate asking.

Why the speed matters

The tempo is not just a production flourish. A song about panic set to a racing beat mirrors the physical sensation of anxiety: the quickened heart, the rush of thoughts, the urge to say everything before the other person walks out of the door. Slow this song down to a ballad and it becomes a sad apology. At full speed, it feels like someone talking too fast because they are afraid of the silence.

Cultural context and legacy

"Stay" arrived at a strange crossroads. The pandemic had pushed young people's mental health into the open, and artists like LAROI, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo were writing frankly about anxiety, insecurity and emotional messiness. At the same time, audiences were desperate for music they could dance to again. "Stay" managed to serve both appetites at once, which goes a long way towards explaining its enormous reach.

The music video, reportedly directed by Colin Tilley, leaned into a dreamlike, slightly disorienting atmosphere, with the two singers caught in surreal sequences that suggested people trapped inside their own heads. It racked up hundreds of millions of views and helped cement LAROI's image as a young artist comfortable on the biggest stage.

On streaming platforms, "Stay" became a juggernaut. It is said to have crossed billions of plays on Spotify with remarkable speed, sitting for long stretches among the platform's most-played tracks worldwide and eventually ranking among its most-streamed songs ever. In Australia, it was a point of national pride: a young Aboriginal artist from inner Sydney topping charts around the globe.

The song also changed the trajectory of LAROI's career. Before "Stay," he was seen as a promising protégé, best known in connection with Juice WRLD. Afterwards, he was a headliner in his own right, filling arenas and building towards his debut studio album, The First Time, released in 2023. For Bieber, the collaboration proved he could still meet young listeners on their own terms, without sounding like an elder trying too hard.

The remixes and the TikTok life

Like most hits of its era, "Stay" lived a second life on TikTok, where its frantic energy suited quick dance clips, transition videos and dramatic lip-syncs. Sped-up and slowed-down edits circulated widely, and its punchy chorus became shorthand for moments of romantic chaos. That social-media afterlife kept the track in heavy rotation long after its chart peak had passed.

Why it still resonates today

Years on, "Stay" holds up because it refuses to be tidy. It does not offer a redemption arc. It does not pretend the narrator will magically become the partner his lover deserves. It captures a feeling many people know but rarely say out loud: the fear that you are too much, too broken, too inconsistent to be loved, and the quiet hope that someone will choose you anyway.

There is also something touching about the generational meeting at its heart. A teenager who had lost his mentor and grown up with instability, singing alongside a man who had spent his own youth under a microscope and survived it. Neither voice sounds like it has all the answers. Both sound like they are trying.

For UK and US listeners who first heard it during the strange, half-open summer of 2021, the song is now a time capsule, a reminder of nights out that felt both thrilling and fragile. For new listeners discovering it today, it remains a perfect example of pop's oldest magic trick: dressing up heartbreak in clothes you can dance in. You come for the hook. You stay, fittingly, for the honesty.

How to dive deeper

🎧 Immerse yourself in the sound

• The Kid LAROI – F*ck Love 3: Over You — The expanded mixtape where "Stay" found its home. Listening to it in full reveals how the song grew out of a teenager processing grief and heartbreak in real time, track after track. The rawer songs around it make the polish of "Stay" feel even more like a brave mask.
• The Weeknd – "Blinding Lights" — The unmistakable older sibling of "Stay," built on the same racing tempo and 1980s synth sheen. Play them back to back and you can hear how pop in this era learned to hide anxiety behind dazzling production. It is a fascinating lesson in how one hit can quietly shape the next.
• Justin Bieber – Justice — Released just months before "Stay," this album captures Bieber in reflective, grown-up mode. Songs about commitment and self-doubt give useful context to his verse, showing an artist who had already spent years thinking about how to be a better partner.

📚 Follow the story

• Juice WRLD's legacy and Legends Never Die — To understand LAROI, you need to understand the mentor who shaped him. Exploring Juice WRLD's posthumous album and the many tributes to him reveals the emotional lineage that runs straight into "Stay." The vulnerability LAROI brings to his songs is, in many ways, inherited.
• Justin Bieber: Seasons — This documentary series follows Bieber through his comeback era, touching on health, marriage and the weight of early fame. Watching it makes his verse in "Stay" land with new force, because you have seen the struggles he is quietly alluding to.
• The Kid LAROI's interviews about Redfern and Waterloo — LAROI has spoken in various interviews about growing up in inner Sydney and about his Kamilaroi heritage. Seeking out those conversations paints a fuller picture of the young man behind the hit and the long road he travelled to reach a global stage.

🌍 Visit the places

• Redfern, Sydney — The inner-city neighbourhood tied to LAROI's childhood is also one of the most important centres of Aboriginal culture and activism in Australia. Walking its streets, past murals and community spaces, offers a sense of the history and resilience that shaped him long before fame arrived.
• Stratford, Ontario — Bieber's hometown is a pretty theatre town best known for its Shakespeare festival, which makes it a surprising birthplace for a global pop phenomenon. Fans still wander past the spots where he busked as a boy, imagining the street-corner performances that eventually led to YouTube stardom.
• Los Angeles recording studios — Much of the song's polished production came together in the LA studio ecosystem where Charlie Puth, Omer Fedi and Blake Slatkin work. Touring the city's music districts gives a feel for the hit factory where a young Australian and a Canadian veteran could meet in the middle.

🎸 Experience it yourself

• Learn the synth riff on a keyboard — The glittering main riff is the heart of the song and surprisingly approachable for beginners. Working it out by ear is a great way to understand how a few bright notes can carry a whole track. Once you have it, try slowing it down and notice how its mood darkens.
• Try an acoustic slowed-down version — Strip the song back to guitar or piano at half speed and you uncover the vulnerable ballad hiding beneath the dance-pop. Many singers online have done exactly this, and the results often sound devastatingly sad. It is the clearest way to hear what the lyrics are really saying.
• Catch The Kid LAROI live — On stage, "Stay" becomes a full-arena singalong, with thousands of voices shouting the chorus back at him. Seeing a young artist command that kind of crowd adds a whole new dimension to the song's story of fragility and hope.

🎵 Listen to this song