“Baby, we were found, but now we’re lost/So it’s time to let it go.” Miley Cyrus’ new song “Slide Away” is all about saying goodbye. It’s her first new song since announcing her split from Liam Hemsworth.
Cyrus dropped the track on Friday (Aug. 16) without any explanation. Instead, she let the song, a heartbreaking guitar ballad, speak for itself.
Throughout, she makes reference to her decade-long on-and-off-again relationship with Hemsworth. “Move on, we’re not 17/ I’m not who I used to be,” she sings, alluding to her own life. Cyrus met Hemsworth on the set of The Last Song when she was that age. “You say that everything changed,” she continues. “You’re right, we’re grown now.”
The breakup song also seems to reference why the two split after less than eight months of marriage. “I want my house in the hills,” she sings. “Don’t want the whiskey and pills,” which show up in the song’s cover art. These lines draw parallels to recent tabloid reports that it was Hemsworth’s alleged partying that brought on the separation.
Earlier this week, Cyrus posted a photo from the studio where she’s working on the follow-up to her latest EP, She Is Coming. This followed her vacation in Italy where photos surfaced of Cyrus kissing her friend Kaitlynn Carter, who recently announced her split from husband Brody Jenner.