Selena Gomez is back with a vengeance! The 27-year-old singer dropped her much-anticipated third studio album “Rare” on Friday, and fans are already hard at work decoding every single lyric.
We already knew the album would be an emotional one after Selena dropped her singles “Lose You To Love Me,” an emotional ballad about learning to love oneself after a breakup, and “Look At Her Now,” an upbeat song about living her best life post-breakup. Fans quickly interpreted the songs to be about moving on from her longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend of nearly four years, Justin Bieber. “Lose You To Love Me,” with its lyrics like “It was her first real lover / His too till he had another / Oh god when she found out / Trust levels went way down,” made fans think Selena was singing about watching the love story between Justin and his now-wife Hailey Baldwin play out in the media.
Similarly, “Lose You To Love Me” seemed to be about Selena being able to move on and love herself after suffering at the hands of someone she thought she loved. Once again, fans thought she was talking about Justin!
We’ve known for some time now that this album would be about Selena’s journey of self-love over the past four years since she dropped her last album. The songs are so personal that they famously made Taylor Swift and her mother cry when they first heard them!
“They were crying because of how proud they were for me stepping into a whole new era of my life, and it not involving the horrible things, the abuse, the emotional chaos, it felt like I had a huge sigh of relief,” the “Rare” songstress told KISS FM UK in December. “And to see her and her mom feel that way, it was very sweet. It’s like an older sister and an aunt. It felt great to have people I love see it as that.”
Naturally, fans have been eager to take a peek inside Selena’s journey as well. And boy did she deliver!
Selena set the stage for the entire album with the title track, “Rare,” where she questioned why her lover can’t tell that she’s one-of-a-kind. “Baby right now it feels like, it feels like you don’t care / Why don’t you recognize I’m so rare? / Always there / You don’t do the same for me / That’s not fair.” Many people thought these lyrics referenced the fact that even though she and Justin had been and item off-and-on since 2010, the “Baby” singer could never seem to value Selena the way she deserved.
The rest of Selena’s album is definitely a journey—the popstar seems to battle back and forth between moving on from toxic relationships by dancing (as seen in the second song “Dance Again”) to falling right back into the same old patterns (like in the album’s sixth song, “Vulnerable”).
This journey resonated with Jelena fans, who speculated that Selena was referring to the numerous times she and Justin broke up, only to get back together again. “If I show you all my demons, and we dive into the deep end / Would we crash and burn like every time before?” Selena croons on “Vulnerable.”
Other songs seemed to be more directly pointed at Justin’s quick move from Selena to Hailey. Justin and Selena were reportedly dating from late 2017 until their final breakup in March 2018, and it took Justin only a little less than three months to move on to Hailey when they were spotted together in June 2018.
WATCH: Selena Gomez Asks Fans To ‘Be Kind’ After Hailey Baldwin Gets Hate Online
There’s the less subtle lyrics that allude to this time in Selena’s life, like when she talks about a lover moving on “two months” after breaking up in her song “Lose You To Love Me.” But fans are also pointing to the lyrics “But people can go / From people you know to people you don’t. / And what hurts the most is people can go / From people you know to people you don’t” as a reference to Justin’s character as well.
Fortunately for Selena, the album’s last couple tracks tell the story of a woman cutting out toxic people (“Cut You Off”) and finally moving on (“A Sweeter Place”).
Like Selena said, she’s stepping into a new era! “A Sweeter Place” is a fun and hopeful song about moving into a new mental space. “Got two feet on the ground and felt what real is like / What it was like livin’ out of the scene, out in the water / Learnin’ to breathe / Up in the clouds, far from the crowds,” Selena sings on the track that features Kid Cudi. So while it may have been a tough few years for the singer, it’s safe to say Selena has come out stronger on the other side!
Selena may not have confirmed any of our suspicions, but we’ll be listening to “Rare” on repeat anyway. And since Justin Bieber recently announced an upcoming tour, album, and documentary in 2020, we can’t help but wonder if there may be some response songs about Selena coming up.
