Love Song Lyrics
Head underwater and they tell me
To breathe easy for a while
The breathing gets harder, even I know that
Made room for me, it's too soon to see
If I'm happy in your hands
I'm unusually hard to hold on to
[Pre-Chorus]
Blank stares at blank pages
No easy way to say this
You mean well, but you make this hard on me
[Chorus]
I'm not gonna write you a love song
'Cause you asked for it, 'cause you need one
You see, I'm not gonna write you a love song
'Cause you tell me it's make or break in this
If you're on your way
I'm not gonna write you to stay
If all you have is leavin', I'ma need a better reason
To write you a love song today
(Yeah) Today, yeah
[Verse 2]
I learned the hard way that they all say
Things you wanna hear
And my heavy heart sinks deep down under you
And your twisted words, your help just hurts
You are not what I thought you were
Hello to high and dry
Convinced me to please you
Made me think that I need this too
I'm trying to let you hear me as I am
[Chorus]
I'm not gonna write you a love song
'Cause you asked for it, 'cause you need one
You see, I'm not gonna write you a love song
'Cause you tell me it's make or break in this
If you're on your way
I'm not gonna write you to stay
If all you have is leavin', I'ma need a better reason
To write you a love song today
[Bridge]
Promise me
That you'll leave the light on
To help me see
With daylight, my guide, gone
'Cause I believe there's a way
You can love me because I say...
[Chorus]
I won't write you a love song
'Cause you asked for it, 'cause you need one
You see, I'm not gonna write you a love song (Ooh)
'Cause you tell me it's make or break in this, huh
Is that why you wanted a love song? (Yeah)
'Cause you asked for it, 'cause you need one
You see, I'm not gonna write you a love song (Write you a love song)
'Cause you tell me it's make or break in this
If you're on your way
I'm not gonna write you (I want you) to stay
If your heart is nowhere in it, I don't want it for a minute
Babe, I'll walk the seven seas (Walk the seven seas)
When I believe that there's a reason
To write you (Write you) a love song today
Today (Yeah), yeah
About
Despite often being presented as a typical love song, “Love Song” is directed to Sara Bareilles' record label. Bareilles was struggling to produce a “big single” to satisfy them, and “Love Song” was born out of the frustration she felt at that.
In her memoir, Sounds Like Me, Bareilles describes the song as “a beacon to help me find my way back to my own artistry at a time when I had lost sight of what that meant.”
After numerous attempts at co-writing with professional songwriters, Bareilles felt really out of touch with herself as a songwriter; she was struggling to stay true to herself. Sitting at the keyboard, and praying to God for help, she wrote the majority of the song in about thirty minutes.
Ironically, it seems the record labels attempts to help Bareilles to mainstream success through partnerships with established songwriters hindered her ability to reach out to her audience more than they helped. “Love Song” became Bareilles' commercial breakthrough without the help of a co-writer.
It peaked at number four on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
Bareilles has spoken about this career-defining song on several occasions.
In 2014, she told CBS that “Love Song” is “kind of a nasty song, but it was very tongue-in-cheek, which is so me to, like, be nasty in a passive-aggressive way!”
In a 2008 interview with MTV, she said that it was borne out of frustration with her record label:
They had encouraged me to keep writing, and I just wasn’t having any luck, and I was turning in the beginnings of ideas and snippets of moments of a song, and I was just getting a really sort of blasé reaction to everything. I started to get really insecure about it, and then I got really pissed off at myself for caring what anybody thought… I went to a rehearsal space one day. I sat down and wrote something for me. And “Love Song” basically wrote itself. It’s totally honest, and I’m very lucky the label liked it as well.
“Love Song” was a top 10 hit in nine countries, including #1 in Canada. It spent 20 weeks in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. It was Billboard’s #1 Adult Pop song of 2008, and #77 in the Hot 100 of the decade.
In 2018, NPR ranked this as the #180 greatest song by a female or nonbinary artist in the 21st century, saying:
Spoiler alert: ‘Love Song,’ Sara Bareilles' 2007 breakthrough single, was never about a person. Rather, ‘Love Song’ was simply Bareilles' poppy response to a label (not to mention the music industry at large) that kept asking for a radio-friendly love song to kick off her music career. Frustrated by the creative confinement, Bareilles put pen to paper (and soulful voice to cheerful ivory keys) to create her own kind of ‘Love Song,’ one where she reminds the naysayers to let her write what she wants, sing what she wants and be who she wants. Spoiler alert (again): Bareilles' heart-on-her-sleeve song won over the label and the radio charts.
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