Shawn Mendes’ new single “In My Blood” is in stark contrast to his previous releases.

The raw, new song is the lead single from Mendes’ upcoming third studio album. “I feel like we need to have lunch before I go into that song,” Zane Lowe told Mendes on a recent “Beats 1” interview, “because it’s such an intense subject.”

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“That’s why every time I play that song for someone I go, ‘Just so you know, I’m OK. Don’t worry about me, I promise I’m OK,'” Mendes replied. “But I walked in and I was like, ‘The only way we’re going to step up regardless of my singing, like the way the melodies and the production… regardless of all that, the only way things are going to get better is if it’s more on us.’ You know what I mean? That’s why I started with the whole laying on the bathroom floor, like how raw can we get?”

Mendes kept his anxiety well hidden, but now he is finally letting his feelings leak on a record.

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“It was kind of something that hit me within the last year. And before that, growing up I was a pretty calm kid, you know. Super steady,” he explained. “I knew people who suffered from anxiety and find it kind of hard to understand and that’s when it hits you. You’re like, ‘Oh my god.’

“This is crazy, you know. But yeah, that song is just complete truth. And then the best thing about it is it’s not all down,” he concluded. “The whole reason I wrote the song was to be, like, at the very end, it is not in my blood to do that. ”

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