"LEECHES" is a song by Melanie Martinez that is featured as the seventh track on her third studio album, PORTALS.
The full song was first played exclusively at a streaming party on March 23, 2023. It was officially released as part of the standard version of PORTALS on March 31, 2023.
The music video premiered on March 28, 2025.
Background[]
Melanie wrote this song in her "portal room"[1], her home studio in her old house. Melanie had asked her A&R, Jeff Levin, to send her folders with instrumental tracks from other producers in order to create songs outside of her own perspective. She ended up finding a guitar loop track produced by Simon Says which stood out to her and began writing the song, leading to the recording of the topline demo on January 2021. She then sent the demo to Kinetics and One Love to finish production on the song, similar to "FAERIE SOIRÉE", "MOON CYCLE", and "Emerald". However, due to a Dropbox hack, multiple songs including this topline demo were leaked prior to the release of the album. Melanie later sent the demo to CJ Baran who finished the production on for the final album.
The song was confirmed as the seventh track on PORTALS on March 17, 2023, through Melanie's social media.[2] The song's lyrics were revealed on March 27, 2023, on Melanie's official website.[3]
Certain fans speculated that the screaming heard during the transition to "BATTLE OF THE LARYNX" represented Oliver Tree, as the song was a conflict song. However, Melanie denied this on August 4, 2023, on TikTok by saying:[4]
"This isn't true. It's a random guy screaming from a sound library me and CJ were looking through. Please stop making things up!"
Melanie Martinez
On March 27, 2025, Melanie posted a teaser picture of a still image of the music video with the caption "tomorrow 1pm ET". The music video premiered on YouTube the following day on March 28, 2025.
Theme[]
According to Melanie, the song is about conflict and how people in Los Angeles can be shallow or exploitative, especially around those in the spotlight.
Additionally, this song could also be about toxic people who drain and manipulate others for their own benefit. The lyrics describe the metaphor feeling of being surrounded by leeches, who push their way into the her life, and try to control them. It later questions how much more can these people take before there's nothing left to give, and the "luck of the draw" implies that sometimes we are unfortunately stuck with these toxic individuals in our life.
This song is a part of a series of tracks on the album which Melanie calls "Conflict Songs". This song along with "BATTLE OF THE LARYNX", "THE CONTORTIONIST", "MOON CYCLE", "NYMPHOLOGY", and "EVIL" as well as presumably "POWDER" and "MILK OF THE SIREN" are the conflict songs that Melanie intentionally added on PORTALS. These songs are about conflict on Earth. According to Melanie on her interview with Apple Music:
"People describe a lot of the after-life to be like a school of sorts, projecting into past lifetimes with people they keep incarnating with, to put themselves in each other's shoes. Showing how they could've best dealt with conflict on earth for next time. These next few songs are about conflict on earth. I'd like to think we all plan these moments together prior to coming here, triggering each other to evolve."
Melanie Martinez
Lyrics[]
[Verse 1]
Leeches surrounded, conscience is throbbing
They can't sleep at night, hold their pillows tight
Caught in the river of tears that I cried
Bountiful harvest, they flock to my garden
Push their way inside, I go run and hide
They lift all the covers, pull me into their sight
[Pre-chorus]
Slimy and superficial
Straining their artificial
Yapping to seem official
Making it beneficial to their cause
[Chorus]
How much blood can you draw with your claws
From a flesh that's not yours?
My hands aren't yours and
Gnaw on my bones, no marrow
Left to keep you enthralled
I guess that is the luck of the draw, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
[Verse 2]
Let all their friends in, the enemy's present
They don't think too hard about your fragile heart
They eat off the table that you set, so you starve
Stop all your breathing (huh), no, don't let them see you
They find any way just to make you stay
Right where they want you in their piss-covered games
[Pre-chorus]
Slimy and superficial
Straining their artificial
Yapping to seem official
Making it beneficial to their cause
[Chorus]
How much blood can you draw with your claws
From a flesh that's not yours?
My hands aren't yours and
Gnaw on my bones, no marrow
Left to keep you enthralled
I guess that is the luck of the draw, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
[Verse 1]
Leeches surrounded, conscience is throbbing
They can't sleep at night, hold their pillows tight
Caught in the river of tears that I cried
Bountiful harvest, they flock to my garden
Push their way inside, I go run and hide
They lift all the covers, pull me into their sight
[Pre-chorus]
Slimy and superficial
Straining their artificial
Yapping to seem official
Making it beneficial to their cause
[Chorus]
How much blood can you draw with your claws
From a flesh that's not yours?
My hands aren't yours and
Gnaw on my bones, no marrow
Left to keep you enthralled
I guess that is the luck of the draw, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
[Verse 2]
Let all their friends in, the enemy's present
They don't think too hard about your fragile heart
They eat off the table that you set, so you starve
Stop all your breathing (huh), no, don't let them see you
They find any way just to make you stay
Right where they want you in their piss-covered games
[Pre-chorus]
Slimy and superficial
Straining their artificial
Yapping to seem official
Making it beneficial to their cause
[Chorus]
How much blood can you draw with your claws
From a flesh that's not yours?
My hands aren't yours and
Gnaw on my bones, no marrow
Left to keep you enthralled
I guess that is the luck of the draw, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
Official versions[]
| Version | Released on | Release date | Producer(s) | Creation date | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final | PORTALS | March 31, 2023 | CJ Baran, Simon Says | 2021-2022 | 3:20 | |
| Demos | ||||||
| "leeches mel mix.mp3" (demo) | Unreleased | November 15, 2021 (leaked) | Melanie Martinez (Simon Says topline) | January 2021 | 3:21 | |
Live performances[]
"LEECHES" was performed at:
Tours[]
- PORTALS Tour (debut performance)
Gallery[]
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To view the gallery of LEECHES, click here.
|
Music video[]
The video begins with a young girl running to her bedroom and crying. Suddenly, she spots a small leech crawling on a window from her room. She gently picks it up. She takes it to her desk and ties a small pink ribbon around its slimy form. The leech appears affectionate, with the cost of it sucking her hand for blood as nourishment. The girl begins to care for it with great tenderness, treating it as a companion as a way to cope with her loneliness. As she grows older, the leech grows with her, and their bond strengthens. Now a teenager, the girl bathes the leech, waters flowers with it, plays with it, paints the leech and feeds it her blood, developing a deep and odd companionship with the creature. It seems almost as if the leech loves her back, its movements gentle and trusting.
One night, the girl wakes up to a dull, stabbing pain in her arm. As she pulls up her sleeve, her eyes widen—there, right on her skin, are two small, dark bite marks. A quiet unease settles in her soul, but she ignores it anyways. Instead, she tells herself that she will do something special for it—something the leech will love.
However, everything changed that day. The girl prepares an adapted meal: she makes blood cookies and kindly serves it to the leech. The leech looks unsatisfied as the affection it once showed her fades, replaced by a cold, unnerving indifference. The plate of cookies is knocked over, landing all over the floor. The leech becomes more aggressive. It no longer responds to her affection. The girl watches helplessly as the leech, now transform into a dangerous force. She realizes it's too late, for the creature she once cared for no longer sees her the same way. The bond starts to break, leaving her in shock and confusion.
The scene shifts to the girl, as she abruptly exits the bathroom late in the night. Her eyes widen upon what has begun happening right in front of her eyes. She sees the leech, inviting several other larger leeches, all slithering into the house. They all flood and raid in the area. The tranquility of her once peaceful space is shattered as they begin to invade it.
The leeches systematically begin to destroy everything in their path—furniture is overturned, glass and ceramics shatter, walls are torn apart, and the once peaceful environment is torn to shreds. In the chaos, Teen Girl tries to flee the house, her heart pounding with fear as the leeches terrorize her home.
Amidst the destruction, they immediately grab her by the leg, crawling over her body, The walls seem to close in as the creatures slither over them. The leeches grab her by the neck, picking her up as they slowly suffocate her. She struggles to breathe, but the weight of the leeches and their relentless movements are too much to escape. Her body is trapped, and she’s consumed by the suffocating presence of the creatures.
As the house crumbles around them, the girl’s face starts to turn pale from suffocation. Struggling even more for breath, her eyes dart frantically across the writhing mass of leeches. And then—she sees it. Among the monstrous creatures, one stands out. A small, tattered pink bow clings to its slick, icky body. It’s the only thing that sets it apart from the others. The leech that she once showered with love and attention and had sacrificed so much of her life supply for has now fully turned behind her back, now only seeing her as prey. Her vision blurs as her mind drifts back to the very beginning—when she was just a lonely child, crying in her room. Through her tears, she had spotted the small leech crawling on her window. As she gently picked it up, cradling it in her hands as if it were something precious, she smiles as she introduces herself: "Oh no! Are you alone, Mr. Leech? I know how that feels. We can be best friends. And we never have to be alone ever again."
As the leeches strangle her neck, she stops twitching and lets herself be led to her inevitable tragic death from asphyxiation. The destruction of everything she held dear mirrors the toxic shift that had occurred between them. The scene cuts to black, and the video ends.
Cast[]
- Little Girl: Mia Rose Castaneda
- Teen Girl: Valeria Aragón Vega
- Dancer/Leech: Judson Emery
Errors[]
- During the scene where the leech is pushing the teen girl on the swing, a car and 3 members of the filming crew could be spotted behind them at the bottom right of the screen for a split second.
Trivia[]
- "SPIDER WEB" transitions to this song, while this song transitions directly to "BATTLE OF THE LARYNX".
- This song, "MOON CYCLE", and "WOMB" are the only songs on PORTALS that never received a promotional video.
- This song has an unstable BPM.
- This means that the speed of the music is not consistent and the BPM changes throughout the song.
- This also marks the second song in Melanie's discography to have an unstable BPM.
- Melanie stated that she would not include songs that had leaked before the album's release. However, despite this song being leaked prior to the album's release, it still made it onto the album.
- The other leaked songs were "TUNNEL VISION", "FAERIE SOIRÉE", "MOON CYCLE", and "MILK OF THE SIREN".
- This song's music video is the first one from PORTALS to only receive a still picture as a form of teaser prior to its release.
- It is also the second PORTALS music video to not receive a video teaser, with the first being "LIGHT SHOWER".
- The music video for this song is the second music video overall in which Melanie does not appear in the video, the first time being the music video for "Recess".
- It is also the first PORTALS music video in which The Creature doesn't appear at all.
- The music video for LEECHES is Melanie's second video to be done in a 4:3 aspect ratio.
- The first video she did in this ratio was the promotional music video for "Soap", which has since been privated.
- The music video was filmed in Joshua Tree, Los Angeles. The house is an Airbnb, located on Hillview Road near Division Street.[5]
- Some of the scenes from the music video was seen being filmed on September 20, 2023.[6]
- The cover of the book the little girl is reading to the leech in the music video contains an illustration of a winged-creature pointing a sword to a dragon, which could be a possible reference to "BATTLE OF THE LARYNX".
- According to Valeria, the actress who played the Teen Girl in the music video, the ending was originally planned to have the leech wrap around her body like a viper, squeezing her until the pressure causes blood to come out of her eyes and mouth.[7] [8] It was ultimately replaced with having the girl suffocated by the leeches instead in the final cut.
- This song is labeled explicit on Amazon Music, likely due to containing the word 'piss', which has had a lot of debate on whether or not it's an explicit word.
- This track and "SPIDER WEB" are the only songs that have music videos that currently don't have a Spotify Canvas.
- Melanie used the song for the "PORTALS PARFURMS EXTRAITS" Trailer.
- This song, "VOID", and "NYMPHOLOGY" were the only songs that got featured in adverts for Portals Parfums.
- The music video for this song is the last music video made for PORTALS
- The first one was DEATH
References[]
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEf4rEevYKc&t=932s
- ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp6EerFDZd1/
- ↑ https://www.melaniemartinezmusic.com/lyricreveal
- ↑ File:Battleofthelarynxtiktokdenial.png
- ↑ https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/28187615
- ↑ https://youtu.be/zHA_dm7aQIg/
- ↑ https://x.com/MelanieMBrasil/status/1906528220037472297
- ↑ https://x.com/melaniemspace/status/1906515719904190959
[]
v • e  | |
|---|---|
| Featured tracks | DEATH • VOID • TUNNEL VISION • FAERIE SOIRÉE • LIGHT SHOWER • SPIDER WEB • LEECHES • BATTLE OF THE LARYNX • THE CONTORTIONIST • MOON CYCLE • NYMPHOLOGY • EVIL • WOMB |
| Bonus tracks | THE HATCHING • POWDER • PLUTO • MILK OF THE SIREN |
| Scrapped tracks | Barely Juice • Corpse • Death • Dragon's Blood • Emerald • Fairy Dance • Fingers Crossed • Fragile (unconfirmed) • Garden • Gravitate • Hawaii Space Guitar • Inconsistent Flame • Jinx • Labyrinth (version 1) • Labyrinth (version 2) • Magnets • MENace To Society • Mother of Pearl • Needle and Thread • Not Dead, Just Expired • Puzzles • Synchronicities • Tunnel Vision • Void • Walkie Talkie |
| Characters | The Creature (Cry Baby) • Masked Dancers • Faeries |
| Producers | Melanie Martinez • One Love • CJ Baran • Verde • The 23rd • Pearl Lion • Simon Says • Cautious Clay (deluxe) |
| Extras | Egg hatching • Film • Merchandise • Portals Parfums • Portals: The Game • Melanie Madness |
| Tour | PORTALS Tour • The Trilogy Tour |