On “Come Back to Earth,” he sings: "I just need a way out of my head." On “Circles,” he sings: "Well, this is what it looks like right before you fall."

The line from "Brand Name" is the hinge between the young, chaotic Mac and the mature, gentle Mac. It is the moment he realized that protection looks like isolation, that health looks like boredom, and that true partying looks like peace. Mac Miller was 26 when he died. He had spent his entire adult life in the spotlight, from the frat rap of K.I.D.S. to the existential jazz of Faces . He never really got to be alone.

I believe it was a negotiation. Mac was trying to reconcile the two wolves inside him: The Wolf of the Party (the rockstar who sold out arenas) and the Wolf of the Solitude (the piano player who found peace in silence). He was asking the universe for a middle path.

"Let me be alone" was his attempt to build a panic room inside the nightclub. The tragedy is that eventually, the panic room became the tomb.

And that is the greatest party of all.