Upon releasing “Why Why Why” and “Isn’t That Enough” as singles from Shawn, his newly announced LP due out on October 18, Shawn Mendes recounted his mother’s reaction. “I remember when I played her the song and video, the first thing she said was, ‘Oh, wow, babe, you found yourself,’” Mendes told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe
Most artist can’t take the time needed to truly find themselves. But increasingly, musicians are changing that narrative. This can even come in the form of canceling or postponing tours and taking hiatus from the public eye, citing mental health. Extending grace to human beings chronically subjected to superhuman expectation is a long overdue development in the music industry. Mendes, 26, has been at the forefront. He has always been transparent about anxiety — wishing he could find himself outside of the pop star spin cycle — since he ascended from his Canadian bedroom to international stages as a teenager.
“My personal wellness journey started a couple years ago when I was going through a really dark time,” Mendes told GQ in the fall of 2021. “I had so much anxiety that I actually couldn’t sing anymore. It was all in my throat, which a lot of men experience. We often experience those emotions as tension in our back, neck, and as pain in our bodies. I couldn’t sing anymore, and I always had a thing about quitting. I didn’t want to quit. And I was in this dark place, and I had to do something. And I was taking it out on other people, like in my relationships. I didn’t want to be that person. So, I started reading. I started meditating and journaling. I worked with a coach, Jay Shetty.”
In July 2022, Mendes hit the breaking point. The multi-platinum-certified musician initially postponed and ultimately canceled his Wonder world tour. “At this time, I have to put my health as my first priority,” he wrote, in part, on social media. “This doesn’t mean I won’t be making new music, and I can’t wait to see you on tour in the future. I know you all have been waiting so long to see these shows, and it breaks my heart to tell you this, but I promise I will be back as soon as I’ve taken the right time to heal.”
What is the most difficult thing to do when you’re on top of the world, possessing the power to do whatever you wish and riding momentum to the moon?
To pause.
And what’s the bravest?
To trust that pausing isn’t quitting. To decide you’d rather temporarily lose it all than permanently lose yourself. You’d rather have inner peace than external validation. You’d rather admit that your health is teetering on the edge, even if your career is right on track, before it’s too late.
It’s quite poignant to rewatch Shawn Mendes: In Wonder, his November 2020 Netflix documentary, after watching Mendes’ 2020-24 unfold.
The Grant Singer-directed film opens with Mendes narrating his racing thoughts during his 2019 global arena Shawn Mendes: The Tour, explaining, “You first get on the stage, and ego comes rushing in, and it goes, ‘Don’t mess up.’ Because you’re the man. Everyone’s saying you’re the man. So, don’t mess up.” Mendes lets loose and lets the music wash over him, remembering he’s “just a guy” who loves music. “Drop the ego,” he says. “Time to surrender.”
Later in the documentary, Mendes struggles to surrender — visibly devastated to cancel a São Paulo, Brazil show due to laryngitis and swollen vocal cord. “If I tell the world that I’m just a normal human, are they going to stop coming to the shows and listening to the music?” Mendes wonders aloud in the doc. “Then you’re like, ‘Wait, maybe I shouldn’t tell them. Maybe I should keep the trick up.’”
If only 2019-20 Shawn Mendes could listen to the 12 songs on the Shawn tracklist — to know that he would fully surrender and be better than ever because of it. Nobody can question Mendes’ honesty in his songwriting throughout his discography, but in the past, Mendes admittedly fixated on saying the right thing. It wasn’t a given that Mendes would be freed to write what he describes as the most honest and natural songs of his life. He could have kept riding the rocket ship, and his talent alone would have produced chart-topping albums and songs. He chose to go find Shawn.
“Why Why Why” signals that he’s no longer interested in keeping the trick up. The acoustic-laden, folk-tinged song resonates like a joyful shrug. He isn’t concerned with blemishing any perceived clean image — divulging he “thought I was about to be a father” and “stepped off the stage with nothin’ left” because “all the lights were f*ckin’ with my head.” He still has unanswered questions, and “Isn’t That Enough” shows he has accepted that: “My hands still shakin’ / My mind’s still racin’ / My heart’s still breakin’ in two / I’m still changin’ / My friends stay patient / My mother still calls for the news / Isn’t that enough?”
“I think the process of working through your sh*t and starting to heal, there’s certainly these moments of feeling like you’re past something, and then there’s moments where it all catches up with you, and you feel like you’re not past a single thing,” Mendes told Zane Lowe. “It’s kind of this cyclical nature. Something I learned in therapy that’s helped me so much is not everything has to have an end-line period solution or end-line period reason. It’s just like, it is. It’s acknowledging it. […] This is also what it’s like to be human.”
Typically, an artist relishes in one self-titled album moment. In May 2018, Mendes released the Grammy-nominated Shawn Mendes. Subtly, dropping his last name for Shawn feels like his strongest statement yet. The album stands to possibly become his fifth No. 1 on the Billboard 200. People will likely always project unto Shawn Mendes, whatever version of his persona to which they’ve attached, and that will never be fair to him. But he won’t hesitate to show them the truth. Being Shawn is enough.