Selena Gomez is back and stronger than ever.
The singer released her first solo single in over a year on Tuesday—the powerful ballad “Lose You To Love Me.” The track, seemingly inspired by Justin Bieber, is all about healing and being unapologetically honest about the emotional turmoil a partner inflicted. And true to Gomez form, it’s another self-love anthem to add to her already lengthy collection of empowering songs.
Accountability is the name of the game in “Lose You To Love Me.” In a show of self-awareness and growth, Gomez sings directly to an ex-lover while simultaneously owning the mistreatment she allowed.
“You promised the world and I fell for it/I put you first and you adored it,” Gomez sings. “Set fires to my forest/And you let it burn/Sang off key in my chorus/’Cause it wasn’t yours.”
Seemingly calling out Bieber’s relationship with now wife Hailey Bieber, Gomez sings, “I gave my all and they all know it/Then you tore me down and now it’s showing/In two months, you replaced us/Like it was easy/Made me think I deserved it/In the thick of healing.”
The 27-year-old shares what all of this pain taught her when she sings, “We’d always go into it blindly/I needed to lose you to find me/This dance, it was killing me softly/I needed to hate you to love me.”
If there’s anything Gomez’s career has taught her, it’s how to create an emotionally raw song that hits listeners right in the heartstrings. With her latest emotional gut-punch of a track out in the world, let’s take a look back on Gomez’s most powerful lyrics.
1. “Who Says”
In 2011, Gomez released her first foray into self-love anthems with “Who Says.” Intended to uplift anyone feeling low, the singer makes you feel like anything is possible in this upbeat track.
“You made me insecure/Told me I wasn’t good enough,” she sings. “But who are you to judge?/When you’re a diamond in the rough/I’m sure you got some things/You’d like to change about yourself/But when it comes to me/I wouldn’t want to be anybody else.”
Fully accepting herself, she sings, “I’m no beauty queen/I’m just beautiful me.” Then she hits fans with some defiantly loving questions in the chorus.
“Who says, who says you’re not perfect?” she croons. “Who says you’re not worth it?/Who says you’re the only one that’s hurting?/Trust me, that’s the price of beauty/Who says you’re not pretty?/Who says you’re not beautiful?/Who says?”
2. “The Heart Wants What It Wants”
This 2014 single showed a much more melancholy side of the multi-hyphenate. In it, she sings of a toxic love she knows she can’t give up.
“The bed’s getting cold and you’re not here,” she laments. “The future that we hold is so unclear.”
Hardship aside, she can’t let it go. “But I’m not alive until you call,” she continues. “And I’ll bet the odds against it all/Save your advice, ’cause I won’t hear/You might be right, but I don’t care/There’s a million reasons why I should give you up.” Many reasons (perhaps 13?) why indeed, and yet, Gomez sings, “But the heart wants what it wants.”
While not necessarily her most uplifting song, the lyrics are all too realistic for anyone who has a hard time leaving love behind. The song was an instantly relatable hit.
3. “Kill Em With Kindness”
Go ahead, now!
Gomez put a life mantra to music on 2016’s “Kill Em With Kindness.” In the song, she invoked her “by grace, through faith” Instagram bio and urged fans to lead with grace in the face of mistreatment.
“The world can be a nasty place,” she lays plain in the first verse. “You know it, I know it, yeah/We don’t have to fall from grace/Put down the weapons you fight with.”
In the endlessly catchy chorus, Gomez sings the line “kill em with kindness” on repeat.
She gets blunt with her listeners in the second verse. “We’re running out of time,” she implores. “Chasing our lies/Everyday a small piece of you dies/Always somebody/You’re willing to fight, to be right.”
Later in the song, she drives the message of kindness home even further. “Your lies are bullets,” she declares. “Your mouth’s a gun/And no war in anger/Was ever won/Put out the fire before igniting/Next time you’re fighting.”
Leave it to Gomez to leave a legacy of life lessons in her music. We won’t have to lose these songs to love her!
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