A Deep Dive Into “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” & The Power Of Tik Tok Virality
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We are entering a new online era in which obscure artists can hope to become well-known and popularized through social media platforms. This is demonstrated by the rise of the emo-pop song, “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head).”
Isaiah Faber, who goes by Powfu, is a twenty-one-year-old Canadian musician and songwriter from Vancouver who gained a large following after the release of his single, “Death Bed”, which charted #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 at its peak and as of July 2020 has amassed over half a billion streams on Spotify. “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” is a prime example of how social media can elevate an artist to stardom, or at least help them become a one-hit-wonder.
After Powfu signed to Columbia Records, the song was first uploaded to SoundCloud and Youtube in 2019 and had a release to streaming and download services on February 8th of 2020. The delayed-release was the result of having to attain clearance of a featured sample, Filipino-British singer, and established artist in her own right, Beabadoobee’s debut single “Coffee.”
“Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” starts with a faraway, transistor radio sound, which beautifully evokes a deep feeling of nostalgia and prompts the listener to reminisce. The lyrics begin “Don't stay awake for too long/ Don't go to bed/ I'll make a cup of coffee for your head/ I'll get you up and going out of bed”
This unique beginning catches your attention, differentiates it from other pop songs, and causes one to take notice of the lyrics. Then the rest of the frequencies are faded in so you can hear the full vocal sounds and Powfu’s rapping is introduced as the beginning lyrics of “Coffee” continue to loop.
The lo-fi hip hop song puts you in a kind of hypnotic trance and I consider “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” one of the few songs, along with “Ocean Eyes” or “Lovely” by Billie Eilish of course, that I will play over and over again without tiring. Part of the appeal is it’s laid-back, homemade vibe, which can be seen when Powfu endearingly sings along to the “Coffee” loop that contrasts with its tragic tale. “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” beautifully synthesizes two very different sounds between Powfu’s uninflected, monotone rap and Beabadoobee’s innocent, girlish delivery of her song, “Coffee.”
The lyrics tell a story of love, heartbreak, and final goodbyes. Powfu, similar to many other popular musicians such as David Bowie plays a character when he raps, and as he said in an interview with Genius “I watch a lot of, like, romantic movies, like cringey stuff that Nicholas Sparks writes, but I love that stuff. And I’ll feel inspired by that, like what the characters are feeling and stuff like that, some of it is personal things that have happened to me, like past relationships and stuff and current relationships as well.”
“Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” takes place from the perspective of a person on his deathbed, who is saying his last words to his girlfriend before he dies. His character endures stages of despair “I don’t wanna fall asleep/ I don’t wanna pass away,” apology “I tried to do my best/ But you know that I’m not perfect,” wishes “Cause, yeah we still young/ There’s so much we haven’t done,” proclamations of love “I hope I go to heaven/ So I see you once again,” thankfulness “My life was kind of short/ But I got so many blessings,” and final goodbyes “It sucks that it’s all ending.” The lyrics include sweet moments of remembering all the good times this person experienced with his significant other, that are specific to them, making you truly believe and mourn their story. His girlfriend would jump into his arms every time she heard a dog bark or how he would “sneak out through [her] kitchen at exactly 1:03.”
One of the greatest critiques of pop music is that while they may have great vocals, production, and sound or catchiness, the lyrics, boiled down, have no real meaning, other than being hyper-sexualized or telling the same lovey-dovey narrative. For instance, “Tossie Slide” by Drake, which garnered 477 million Spotify streams and also gained traction on social media, merely consists of dancing instructions. The chorus contains the lines “It go, right foot up, left foot slide/ Left foot up, right foot slide/ Basically, I'm saying either way, we 'bout to slide, ayy.” This hip hop song was created and marketed for to have the Tik Tok community make dances to it, subsequently increasing its popularity. Therefore, it doesn’t require substantial lyrics, only a catchy beat. “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” rebels against that set expectation with a dark, bittersweet meaning that contrasts with the light, airy sounds.
Powfu’s single only began to receive attention when it became a trend on Youtube, an online video-sharing platform, and Tik Tok, a video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance. Powfu recounts his experience “I remember I was going through Youtube one day, and I looked up Death Bed, every video that was popping up was like made in the Philippines and they made their own version. It was just so many covers on it. I was like woah this is kind cool. And I would listen to them and yeah they would do their own twist on it which was sick. Seeing it in different countries is crazy.” Many other unknown artists and ordinary people have gone through similar events, such as a sixteen-year-old Charli D’Amelio whose dancing Tik Tok videos sent her skyrocketing on a path to fame and opportunities with many celebrities, including J Lo. Other examples include Justin Bieber, who was discovered on Youtube, and Shawn Mendes discovered on Vine.
In fact, many songs are orchestrated for the purpose of going viral and many famous singers or rappers create music in the hopes of Tik Tok and social media platforms picking them up. Examples of these include “Yummy” by Justin Bieber, “Say So” by Doja Cat, and “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd. These songs are different from “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” because the artists’ behind them were already well-known and their songs were intentionally made to be used in Tik Tok. In contrast, Powfu was a nobody and his song was an accidental hit. This lo-fi hip hop masterpiece came to be in the more natural, organic way with no ulterior motives or big plans for it, which for me makes the appeal even stronger.
The music video, which has 148 million views despite only being posted to Youtube 4 months ago, shows Powfu lying on a bed in the middle of the woods. It cuts to scenes of him with his girlfriend, holding hands at sunset, knocking on her door with a rose in hand, cuddling in bed, pushing each other around in shopping carts, and kissing. The video’s last shot displays Powfu slowly losing consciousness, his eyes blinking until they finally stay closed, indicating his peaceful death.
“Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” demonstrates how much of an unpredictable, yet powerful tool social media can be, especially in terms of accelerating the courses of nameless artists. Despite the growth that his song, “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” has experienced, Powfu currently remains for the most part an unknown name, which further illustrates the uncertainty that comes along with such platforms. Someone can become a meme or their artwork may go viral, and yet they will soon be swallowed up into the sea of anonymity, easily replaced by another person, video, or song. There are some examples of people who manage to grasp onto the usually short-lived recognition and create a sustainable career for themselves out of the momentary coverage, such as the aforementioned Charli D’Amelio.
The constant consumption of social media has made us accustomed to scrolling through countless pages and discovering new things every day. At first sight, this is a good thing, but it also means that we expect for more things to be regularly provided for us and continuous change. Things go viral every day, therefore losing the prior importance and rarity that going viral used to have. The fate of Powfu’s music career depends on whether Powfu and his marketing team will be able to successfully remain relevant and ride out his wave of sudden fame by releasing new, equally well-received popular music. As of August 13, 2020, Sista_Prod has released the song, “Eyes Blue Like The Atlantic Part 2,” featuring Powfu along with various other artists.