I thought my A&R guy was going to get mad. I made it so, so deeply specific to my experience, I thought that they would be angry with me. I even referenced Maroon 5 in the lyrics-those were people I knew very closely and was touring with. Bareilles earned two Grammy nominations for it-s ong of the year and best female pop performance.

The song, released in 2007, rose to number four on the Billboard Hot 100, spending more than 40 weeks in the charts. “ Love Song” was the debut single on Bareilles’s first studio album with a major music label. It was never on the radio! To have a song that never ended up on the radio be probably my number one, most-requested song is a very special thing.

I couldn’t possibly have imagined that the song would have this life. I think the reason that song remains so special to me is that I got to see for the first time that as brave as I could be in sharing my vulnerability, the more connective it was for my audience. Those kinds of things felt like a gravitational pull. I just felt like I physically didn’t have the strength to not respond to his calls, or not go see him if he asked me to. It didn’t matter how much I would give myself pep talks, or feel my own resolve in moving forward, or think, He treated me poorly so we’re over.

“Gravity” is really about having my heart broken by another person and feeling physically unable to keep myself away. It’s the first time I processed my intimate personal experience in a song in a way that expanded out to deal with metaphor and these larger themes. I wrote “Gravity” when I was about 18 years old. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Brave sara bareilles album cover