InIn a podcast interview with Song Exploder today (Sept. 23), Selena Gomez retold the story behind her career-first Billboard Hot 100 hit “Lose You To Love Me.”
She partnered with Grammy-winning production duo Mattman & Robin (Taylor Swift’s 1989) and reunited with her best songwriting pals, Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter to make the Rare hit, whom she said she trusted “so naturally” throughout the cathartic recording process.
“This song alone represents what a lot of people who are heartbroken have gone through,” she said. “One of the hardest parts for me to sing in the song was the bridge. It’s the ending of the song, and that’s the part where it’s like, ‘You know, I guess this is goodbye forever for us.’ And that killed me.”
During her four-day break amid her hectic touring schedule, Michaels spent her last day at home working on “Lose You To Love Me.” She suggested making the song a ballad, and once she began humming over Robin’s stirring piano chords that introduce the emotive song, tears welled up in Gomez’s eyes and streamed down her face. “She just started crying. She was like, ‘This is so beautiful. This is exactly what I wanted,” the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter recalled of their first day in the studio.
“When Julia came in and was talking about what her and Selena had discussed, it was really wanting to address like head-on what Selena had been through — the heartbreak, the emotional roller coaster, but really portray that she is on the other side of it,” Tranter added. “One of her superpowers is being so honest, and she’s going to give you her life in the lyric, but then when she gets on the mic, she does the same thing. She tells you the story, she brings you through her truth, and that is what makes great art.”
Listen to Gomez’s “Lose You To Love Me” Song Exploder episode below.
