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ABC RadioKhalid wants his fans to know that his song, “Saved,” isn’t about his long-lost cat Lily.
The 19-year-old singer admits that his tweet about the origins of the track was a joke that got out of hand, and tells ABC Radio the real story behind it.
He explains, “It was actually just about my move from New York to El Paso. Just the fact that I lost a lot of relationships that meant a lot to me.”
“But even though whatever I went through was just painful and heartwrenching, I just could not allow myself to delete their number,” he adds. “I had to keep it saved for a sense of closure, eventually. At the end of the song I find out, ‘You know what? I wanna call you to let you know that I’m over you.'”
Khalid’s raw and unflinching honesty, heard throughout his debut album, American Teen — which debuted at number nine on the Billboard 200 last month — has helped earn him a legion of fans. He also knew before releasing the project that it would change his life forever.
He says, “The day that the album came out, I really knew that it was gonna be a big difference for me because it was finally the day that I got to express all of me. Emotionally, physically, just every part of me.”
“I put this body of work together,” the singer explains. “I put all of me into it. I’m like, ‘You know what? It’s time to get this baby free.'”
The young artist also trusted his gut instinct when it came to his ambitions.
He adds, “I knew that music was gonna be my career choice because I’m in love with music.”
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