“Staying” is the sixth track from Lizzy McAlpine’s third studio album, released on April 5, 2024. At this point in time, Lizzy McAlpine’s popular song “staying” has approximately 14 million monthly listeners and about 80 million listeners in total. The song “Staying” is about being in a toxic relationship, knowing you should leave but feeling stuck and wanting to hold on; in other words, it can resemble an unhealthy attachment by wanting to stay despite the pain. Before the release of her album, on an Instagram live McAlpine shared that “staying is her favorite song from her upcoming album as it illustrates her struggle to leave a toxic relationship.”
The song “Ceilings” was released on April 8th, 2022 as part of the album Five Seconds Flat. Since it was released it has always been a popular song of McAlpine’s, but recently it went viral on TikTok making it her most played song. “Ceilings” has over 827 million streams on Spotify alone and around 14 million monthly listeners. This popular song of hers is about daydreaming of a past relationship and yearning for her lost love and the mix between fantasy and reality.
“Pushing it down and praying” is the lead single of older (and wiser), released on April 5, 2024. The song has over 111 million streams on Spotify. “Pushing it down and praying” is about the internal conflict of being with a current partner while emotionally longing for her ex, and the guilt/ confusion to end these feelings about her ex to maintain her current relationship. As well as “ceilings”, “pushing it down and praying” became very popular on tiktok. The lyrics have deep meanings, leading people to relate to the song and make a connection from their own life to the song. The lyrics “pushing it down and praying” resembles avoidance and fear, by avoiding confrontation with her current partner and hoping the emotional disconnect doesn’t become true as she fears the emotional betrayal in the relationship. Another meaningful lyric, “He is stable, you are deep,” signifies her current partner showing stability but her ex provides the deep connection that she misses.
“Spring into summer” is about the cyclical, bittersweet nature of love, regret and change. Regret is expressed by hurting the person first and wanting to go back and change things after. The seasonal terms in the song are used as a metaphor seen as changes in a relationship, like highs and lows and the feeling of being stuck in a loop of loving and losing someone as time passes. The song was released in October of 2024 and is part of McAlpine’s “older (and wiser)” album. As of January 2026 the song has around 150 million streams on Spotify and about 400,000 daily streams.
“Doomsday” by Lizzy McAlpine is about the painful end of a toxic relationship and acceptance that doomed and toxic relationships end with a narcissistic partner. The term “funeral” is used as a metaphor to resemble the end of a toxic relationship. The song shows the experience of knowing a relationship is doomed but feeling powerless until the final moment and finding freedom in the situation after. “Doomsday” is a part of McAlpine’s album five seconds flat, released in 2022 and has over 314 million streams on Spotify as of January 2026.
