When NF released “Leave Me Alone” in July 2019, he wasn’t asking politely.
Hey! Leave me alone (Leave me alone)
Painic-stricken, handle business, not a joke, yeah
Manners missin’, travel different, no control, yeah
The opening line sets the boundary immediately, followed by a verse that captures the frantic mental state he’s been documenting throughout The Search.
The video, co-directed by NF and Patrick Tohill, returns to that abandoned carnival aesthetic, reportedly filmed at the shuttered Six Flags New Orleans, where rust and empty rides mirror his internal world.
What makes the song register in your mind is how concrete the imagery gets. Those black balloons aren’t just visual flair. They’re grounded symbols of doubt he’s been carrying, the same ones he considers releasing.
The shopping cart from previous videos reappears. The wristband alludes to the fact he’s both patient and warden of his own mind.
Everything present reinforces the central theme: he knows what’s holding him back, but letting go isn’t simple.
The production keeps things claustrophobic on purpose. The vocals sit dry in the mix, drums stay clipped and urgent.
There’s no room for escape in the sound itself, which matches the lyrical loop he’s describing: the rumination, the balloon-filling, the cycle that won’t quit.
He also takes aim at industry pressure in a way that feels specific to 2019’s social media demands.
“We don’t post enough on our socials
To keep the buzz from fading
Yeah, that’s what the people are saying
I don’t know how to explain it
But I guess that’s entertainment”
The verse about posting enough to maintain buzz reads like someone exhausted by the performance requirements of modern music careers.
It’s not subtle, but it’s honest about a frustration most artists feel but rarely name directly.
Why It’s Trending Again
Six years later, “Leave Me Alone” keeps resurfacing on YouTube. The HOPE Tour in 2024 brought it back into rotation, sparking fresh concert footage.
Then there’s the wave of reaction content: therapists analysing the mental health themes, faith-based channels connecting with the honesty, first-time listeners discovering NF’s catalogue. Fans clip the “quiet, quiet, quiet” hook and upload it everywhere.
YouTube’s shift away from its Trending page in mid-2025 probably helps too. The platform now leans harder on personalized recommendations and short-form content, which means a visually striking video with quotable lines and symbolic imagery has more pathways back into view.
The Credits and Context
Nathan Feuerstein wrote the track with Tommee Profitt and Cole Walowac, who also handled production. It appeared on The Search, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. That commercial validation keeps catalogue cuts in rotation years later.
How It Connects to Recent NF Tracks
If you’ve been following our coverage, this song slots in as the pressure point before the evolution. In our breakdown of “HOPE,” we talked about NF trying to build steadier patterns after years of chaos. In “HAPPY,” the focus was on wanting change while being terrified of it.
“Leave Me Alone” is where that conflict lives in 2019 form. He’s naming the rumination, setting boundaries against external noise, but still trapped in the fairground of his own thoughts.
The balloons he mentions releasing? He’s still holding them. The later songs show what happens when he finally lets go, even partially.
The visual language stays consistent (carts, wristband, carnival debris) but the relationship to those symbols shifts as he moves from resistance to tentative hope.
Start here to understand the weight he was carrying in 2019. Move to HOPE and HAPPY to see what happened when he stopped just surviving the noise and started trying to quiet it.
What Makes This Song Work
Here’s the thing about “Leave Me Alone”: it catches you off guard with how direct it is. You expect some kind of metaphorical cushion around the pain, but NF just names it.
The balloons weighing him down. The fake smile painted on his face that he can’t fully wipe off. The corner where he talks to himself in a language nobody else speaks.
He mentions his awards gathering dust in the closet next to his self-hatred, puts his OCD on display without softening it for public consumption.
There’s no artistic distance here, no clever wordplay to soften the blow. Just the admission that keeping it together requires a performance he’s exhausted from giving.
The video drives this home harder. Watch him hand those black balloons to someone in white at the end. Is it his wife? Faith? Some version of hope he’s finally willing to trust?
The song doesn’t spell it out. What registers is the gesture itself: the decision to stop carrying everything alone, even when he’s terrified of what happens if he actually lets go.
This is the NF you need to understand before you get to HOPE and HAPPY. Back in 2019, he was still stuck in the amusement park of his own thoughts, surrounded by people in white who’d found something he hadn’t.
The later songs show what changed. But “Leave Me Alone” captures the exact moment before change becomes possible, when the weight gets too heavy to ignore and the boundaries finally get set.
That’s why it still hits hard. Not because it’s polished or because it has some perfect resolution. It hits because it’s true, and truth like that doesn’t age out.