Post Malone is enjoying one of those weeks that most musicians can only dream of achieving. This Sunday (February 11), he’ll occupy one of the world’s biggest stages when he performs “America the Beautiful” as part of the pregame festivities for Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. On top of that, he received the news that one of his songs, the 2018 collaboration with Swae Lee called “Sunflower,” has reached an unprecedented level of success.
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The RIAA announced this week that “Sunflower” has reached Double Diamond status—that means it has sold 20 million copies. No other song in history has reached that staggering peak.
What is it about this song that has coaxed so many people into purchasing it? How did Swae Lee and Post Malone, along with their co-writers, come up with the idea for the track? And what did its inclusion in the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse have to do with it all? Let’s take a look at how “Sunflower” grew into such a massive hit.
The One that Almost Got Away
While camped out in Los Angeles for sessions at Electric Feel studios in 2018, Malone and Lee were winding down, having already laid down several tracks. Yet Lee, who by that time had already made a name for himself as part of the rap duo Rae Sremmurd, had an urge to keep rolling for at least one more track, as he explained to Variety. Producer Louis Bell played him a track that he had worked up with a clattering mid-tempo beat, and inspiration struck.
“The melody came first, then the hook and my verse,” Lee explained. “I just wrote in my head and then I ended up putting words to it just like five minutes after. … I was fully warmed up [after a full night in the studio] and the most creative energy comes out at 5 a.m. amongst us creatives. … I wanted to go out with a bang that night, and I got it out of me.”
Lee and Malone are credited as co-writers on “Sunflower,” along with Carl Rosen, Billy Walsh, and co-producers Bell and Carter Lang. It arrived in October 2018, and by January of the following year, it had ascended to the top of the pop charts.
Granted, Malone and Lee each held pretty high profiles in the music world at the time, so the song likely would have been a commercial smash regardless. But you could also credit its inclusion in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the animated film that, at the time of its release, seemed like an iffy bet. After all, hadn’t Spider-Man already been played out at the theaters?
Of course, Into the Spider-Verse was a revelatory reimagining of the character, and the film turned out to be a critical and commercial smash and, eventually, an Oscar winner. “Sunflower” appears in the film, and not just as incidental music, but as a song being sung by the lead character. Hence, the song received a boost that otherwise might not have occurred with a more traditional release. (It would also appear on Post Malone’s 2019 album Hollywood’s Bleeding.)
What is “Sunflower” About?
The key to the meaning of “Sunflower” is understanding the nature of a sunflower, which can grow despite neglect and harsh environments. Hence, every time Malone and Lee claim that You’re the sunflower, they are acknowledging that the characters they’re portraying in the song are the ones that are failing the girl they’re addressing. It’s never clear if Malone and Lee are inhabiting the same protagonist, or if they’re meant to be two different people (they each take a verse). But what matters is the damage done to the girl who has to put up with the nonsense.
In Lee’s verse, he intimates that he is coming back to this girl only after having a dalliance with someone else: She was a bad-bad, nevertheless, he sings, leaving out the epithet he might have used. This leads to an inevitable argument: Screamin’ at my face, baby, don’t trip.
Malone’s verse at least implies some remorse on the part of this guy. Every time I’m walkin’ out / I can hear you tellin’ me to turn around. He also shows some understanding for her predicament: I know you’re scared of the unknown. Yet he ends the verse with an admission that his frailty is unavoidable, and that she’ll be the victim of it as long as she stays in his life: I know I always come and go / But it’s out of my control.
The chorus is devastating for the way the guy is so clear-eyed about what he’s bound to do to her: And you’ll be left in the dust / Unless I stuck by ya. It’s that willingness to portray human nature honestly without any sugarcoating that causes “Sunflower” to hit so hard—20 million times over, as it turns out.
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Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images
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