"Crushed" was written by band membersDan Reynolds,Wayne Sermon,Ben McKee,Daniel Platzman as well as produced by the band. The song's lyrics describe someone who is always crushed or trapped by the expectations of others into being someone she is not. The song uses this theme to reference toNathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" with the lyrics "Don't you know / That you don't have a say? / And the scarlet "A" on your neck / So pretty in red". The song's deep and low guitar is similar to earlyRadiohead songs.[4] It originally began in Platzman's dome studio and evolved from there with Reynolds' deeply personal lyrics.[4]
The music video for "Crushed" was released on May 10, 2023, and was directed by Ty Arnold and produced by Arnold, Roman Ostrovskyi, and Igor Shcherbyna.[5] The video follows the story of 14-year-old Ukrainian Sasha and features clips of him walking through his home village of Novohryhorivka in theMykolaiv Oblast, which had been underRussian occupation for five consecutive months. The video shows houses and buildings destroyed by occupation and urges viewers to donate toUnited24. Sasha was invited to an Imagine Dragons concert to show support and unfurl the Ukrainian flag inWarsaw, Poland in August 2023.[6]
