The True Meaning Behind Love Is A Game By Adele

For nearly a decade and a half, Adele has captured the hearts and minds of vulnerable souls around the world. With her expansive mezzo-soprano vocal range, velvety crooning, and a penchant for harmonic decorations, the British-born singer has risen to be one of the most respected performing artists of this generation. With four studio albums (including November's "30") under her belt, Adele has proven time and time again that her musical proficiency is unparalleled.

With her latest release, "30," arriving on November 19, Adele has already broken a ton of records in the album's short promotion span. Per Sky News, the singer smashed the streaming record in attaining 24 million listens in one week with "Easy on Me" — beating out Ariana Grande's hit single "7 Rings," which registered 16.9 million streams in one week at its height. "Easy on Me," which serves as the record's lead single, also broke another record in receiving the most Spotify streams in a single day — ousting previous winners BTS for their song, "Butter" (via People).

Adroit and tactful in her approach, what sets Adele apart from the rest is her authenticity and humility. Never one to shy away from her feelings, it is this same legitimacy that has brought Adele back on top after a six-year hiatus between "30" and 2015's "25." And despite all the attention "Easy on Me" is receiving, there's another song that is equally deserving of attention — the soulful and heartfelt closer, "Love is a Game."

Love has been a topic near and dear to Adele's heart since her 2008 debut with "19." In 2011, she entered a relationship with now-estranged entrepreneur Simon Konecki. Together, they welcomed one son, Angelo James, in October 2012. Their relationship timeline, however, gets a bit hairy. BBC reports the couple tied the knot in 2016, which makes sense given that Adele referred to Konecki as her "husband" at the 2017 Grammy Awards (per Us Weekly).

Lo and behold, however, Adele confirmed the two wed presumably in 2018, as she told Vogue, "We got married when I was 30 ... and then I left." The couple's acrimonious 2019 split would go on to service Adele's new record "30," as the fingerprints and ashes of their failed relationship sonically stain the British singer's latest release. The album, which comes six years after her last release, "25," is a heart-wrenching melodrama entailing, amongst other tumults, the fallout of her irreparable relationship with Konecki. The closing track, "Love is a Game," tells the listener all.

Opening up with a discordant orchestration and a jarring chromatic dissonance, the string section quickly resolves into a beautiful, cloudy harmony — a seemingly calculated move that evokes a striking audiovisual examination into Adele's mental state. It's as if the instrumentation were meant to represent Adele's trials and tribulations, which, in the snap of a finger, all disappeared in a serene moment of clarity through song.

What follows the introduction's ear-catching instrumental is a beautiful segue into a whimsical, jazz-slash-classical atmosphere. Soon comes in Adele's silky vocals, in which she laments, "All your expectations of my love are impossible / Surely you know that I'm not easy to hold / It's so sad how incapable of learning to grow I am / My heart speaks in puzzle and codes" (via Genius).

It's a not-so-subtle nod to the fractured relationship with Simon Konecki, whom Adele was romantically intertwined with for the better part of a decade. And while she lambasts Konecki for the "heartache" that was caused, the track is mostly introspective and sees Adele shoulder the majority of the blame. And while she previously acknowledges that she's "not easy to hold," it becomes more apparent in the bridge section, where she croons, "No amount of love / Can keep me satisfied."

With her soulful delivery, soaring melodies, and bone-chilling falsetto, it's almost as if Adele channels Amy Winehouse stylistically through this song. And when the chorus of "When love is a game for fools to play / And I ain't fooling ... what a cruel thing ... / To self-inflict that pain" comes in, the production truly shines with Adele's multi-layered vocals — opening up a sonic spectrum that, alongside the track's great composition, allows the listener to really feel Adele's pain and sorrows as she endured throughout her divorce with Simon Konecki.