“Hey You” by Disturbed

Disturbed’s “Hey You” is a song which is meant to induce the act of self-reflection in the listener. Draiman has concluded that the last couple of years of American history, if you will – with the primary event being the COVID-19 pandemic – has not had a positive effect on our togetherness at all. Instead, it’s like people are more divided than ever, which in a way, if you think about it, is kinda true. 

Or put otherwise, besides for all of the mandatory isolation and crazy stuff we witness through the media, there’s all of these protests; political parties at get each other’s throats, abortion right’s drama, so on and so forth. And going back to Draiman’s personal take on it all, he basically feels as if we’re dumbing out, being caught up in what he terms as “outrage addiction”, as spurred by the powers that be.

And again, the onus for desire change is put on the individual. So basically what we have here is the vocalist confronting the audience, with the intended addressee an outrage addict, i.e. someone who has grown accustomed to being angry all the time. 

We’ve all seen those types of people, the ones who’d be protesting on TV for instance, and you think to yourself that maybe they’re taking the matter a bit too seriously or are so negative that they have more of a detrimental than positive effect. But what this song is also saying is that “many of us” fall into that category also, as in beefing just for beefing’s sake. And of course if everyone is beefing, then the possibility of their being peace, harmony, compromise and agreement is thrown out the window.

Conclusion

So conclusively, it’s as if the vocalist is saying to step back and take a chill pill. Or as he infers, you may be ready to kill or be killed in the name of a particular cause, only to find out later down the line that you’re under the effects of a mass hypnosis, so to speak.

When was “Hey You” released?

This came out on 14 July 2022. As of the track’s release, it is reportedly the lead single from a forthcoming Disturbed album. This album currently does not have a title. 

Credits

Disturbed is a band from Chicago that has dropped a number of Billboard 200 chart toppers. And its bandmates are the authors of “Hey You”, with Drew Fulk holding down the production responsibilities.

Below is Hey You‘s official writers:

• John Moyer
• Dan Donegan
• Mike Wengren
• David Draiman