Staying Anyway

The Knowing runs almost six minutes and goes nowhere comfortable. It’s from Echoes of Silence, the third part of The Weeknd’s Trilogy—the era before he had a face, before the face became a brand, when he was still just a voice from Toronto that nobody could fully account for. The song is about knowing you’re being lied to and not leaving anyway, staying because leaving requires a certainty you don’t have yet, or maybe just because you still want her regardless. Abel Tesfaye doesn’t resolve it. He sits in it for six minutes with that particular mixture of devastation and desire he was doing better than anyone in 2011.