The Meaning of Love Yourself by Justin Bieber

I really enjoy some of Justin Bieber’s new music. His lyrics seem to be gaining more depth and meaning as he advances further into adulthood. Even though some of the lyrics in this song are kind of immature and “high schoolish” we can still find meaning and relate to the scenarios described in the lyrics well into adulthood and mature relationships.

One interesting thing I found out about this song is that it’s co-written by Ed Sheeran which perhaps explains the deeper meaning in the song as compared to some of his other work.

So let’s begin examining the lyrics for hidden and obvious meaning.

Verses

For all the times that you rain on my parade
And all the clubs you get in using my name
You think you broke my heart, oh girl for goodness sake
You think I’m crying on my own, well I ain’t

The odd line out in this part of the verse is “and all the clubs you get in using my name” the other three lines are aimed at how he was hurt, but this line is more or less aimed at taking a cheap shot at the other person with an attitude of, “The only reason you can get into the clubs is because of me.”

“Rain on parade” is referencing all the things she or the person in this song did to try to screw him over or stop him from having a good time. He’s basically saying you think you hurt me good but you didn’t, which is an obvious paradox because if he felt strong enough about it to say something then he was definitely hurt in some way.

And when you told me that you hated my friends
The only problem was with you and not them
And every time you told me my opinion was wrong
And tried to make me forget where I came from

Friends are good at detecting fake bitches and assholes. We all have friends that are always unsure or suspicious of the people we get into relationships with, some are just being paranoid and overprotective but a lot of the times they are spot on when they say, “I have a bad feeling about this guy/girl, be careful.”

So most likely she said she didn’t like his friends because his friends didn’t like her and now he’s saying that it turned out they were right about you, and that you were the problem.

This most likely sparked argument during the relationship where she would manipulate and belittle him.

For all the times that you made me feel small
I fell in love, now I feel nothin’ at all
And never felt so low when I was vulnerable
Was I a fool to let you break down my walls?

Further evidence he was belittled with the line “For all the times that you made me feel small”. Now he’s questioning falling in love and letting this person into his life, maybe thinking this was all a mistake.

Pre-Chorus/Chorus

And I didn’t wanna write a song
Cause I didn’t want anyone thinking I still care
I don’t but, you still hit my phone up
And baby I be movin’ on
And I think you should be somethin’
I don’t wanna hold back, maybe you should know that

The first two lines are more paradox, obviously he does care and he did enough to write a song about it.

We also learn that she still tries to contact him and that he is now saying in the song that he’s moving on, however, we all know that most relationships have a lot of post arguments or phone back and forths that linger on as everything is collapsing. It is quite feasible this song was written in response to an argument gone wrong or a final argument gone wrong via phone.

“I think you should be something” is confusing because he doesn’t really say what. Is he indicating that she should be his wife? The next line continues that he doesn’t want to hold back and that she should know that. Hold back from what?

He’s either saying that he wanted her to be something in his life and that he didn’t want to wait or hold back or he’s saying that she should go be something else and he doesn’t want to hold her back or be held back.

Because of the tone of this song I’m going to go with the second option and say that he wants her to go be something else to somebody else because he doesn’t want to be hold back or hold himself back from getting what he truly wants.

Although all of the hopeful Bieber fans probably wish for him and Selena to be together again as a power couple, so there’s always that line that could possibly indicate he wanted her to be more than she was.

My mama don’t like you and she likes everyone
And I never like to admit that I was wrong
And I’ve been so caught up in my job, didn’t see what’s going on
But now I know, I’m better sleeping on my own

Just like his friends in the above lines, his mama was also on to her. He probably defended her and their relationship to his mother and in the end he had to crawl back home to mommy and say he was wrong.

His excuse is that he was too busy. If you think of the type of industry he’s in and his popularity he probably spends a lot of time travelling on the road, and if this song is about Selena, she was probably always on the road too so I’m guessing their physical time together was limited which would allow their relationship / her to fall off the radar so he wasn’t giving its full attention to it.
Cause if you like the way you look that much
Oh, baby, you should go and love yourself
And if you think that I’m still holdin’ on to somethin’
You should go and love yourself

This next verse makes her sound conceited which maybe she was obsessed with how she looked not just physically speaking but she may have liked the way she looked and the popularity and spotlight she gained by being with him.

So in this part he’s basically saying, if you care about appearances that much, then you should go and just love yourself and leave him out of the picture because he’s not holding on to anything so shallow.

Conclusion

The song is completely paradoxical. We gain some insight about Justin and his relationship with possibly Selena, assuming that this song is about them. We learn that he was or is hurt by it and he’s trying to move on.

He’s shifting the blame and responsibility for their downfall to her or at least pointing out the parts of the relationship he didn’t like and making her seem very superficial only caring more about appearances than about him.

It’s a very catchy tune, quickly becoming one of my favorites for sure. I hope you enjoyed this philosophical analysis, if any of the parts mean something different to you please feel free to add a comment, I would love to hear your take on it. Philosophy isn’t about what the song “actually” means but rather what it “could” mean to each individual listener.