Miley Cyrus announced that she is coming out with an album entitled Endless Summer Vacation on March 10th of this year. The first single off of this album is entitled Flowers. On Liam Hemsworth’s birthday, she released this song to commemorate her personal growth after finally ending their ten-year relationship. The same sentiment of pride and “self-dating” is predicted to be a major theme on the whole album as well.
Flowers has become the new anthem for those who want to start practicing self-care and self-love at any stage in life. The chorus of the song proclaims “I can buy myself flowers,” indicating that she doesn’t need to be in a relationship to deserve flowers. As a newly single woman, she proudly proclaims that she can still do everything that she was able to do in a relationship. She can “talk to [her]self for hours,” “take [her]self dancing,” and “can hold [her] own hand” now that she has taken the time to heal herself from her past relationship.
Miley is emphasizing that she does not need to be in a relationship to do these things that make her happy. Why should she wait for someone to take her dancing when she can do it by herself? She wants all listeners to understand how to be strong and independent, a lesson that took her upwards of ten years to learn.
Many young women grew up watching Hannah Montana on their televisions. Due to the high number of eyes on her since a young age, her music and her presence have been extremely influential for people of all ages, but specifically young women. This song breaks barriers about the importance of practicing self-love and what this means in today’s world. Miley wants to emphasize in this song that we should prioritize ourselves first.
Miley’s message from this song has hit home for a lot of her listeners, those who have been there with her from the beginning as well as new listeners of her music. After listening to Miley’s new single, Annie Reneau from Upworthy states that “In my experience, the more healthy, happy, and whole we are on our own, the more we are able to contribute to a relationship.” For us to become the best version of ourselves, we need to understand this concept of loving ourselves before we can love someone else.
This week, Flowers hit number one on the Billboard Top 100. This is her first number-one hit in over a decade, showing just how powerful this message is for those who are still trying to find themselves post-relationship. Being single does not have to be as demeaning as society makes it out to be. Miley wants us to know that we should be as happy as we are in a relationship as we are when we are single. We must learn to love ourselves because we are the only person that we will spend every moment of our life with.