Weak
by AJR

Album: The Click (2017)
Charted: 58 73
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Songfacts®:

  • This ode to weakness was the second Hot 100 hit for the sibling trio of Adam, Jack and Ryan Met, following 2014's "I'm Ready."
  • The song finds the AJR trio admitting to the feeble ease in which they succumb to temptation:

    One sip, bad for me
    One hit, bad for me
    One kiss, bad for me
    But I give in so easily
    And no thank you is how it should've gone
    I should stay strong.


    Asked by Billboard magazine why AJR decided to write about such an unconventional subject, Ryan Met replied:

    "A lot of the songs on the radio now are about staying strong and staying confident. We were listening to that and we were like, 'That's good to inspire people, but sometimes that can get to be a little bit of an unrealistic expectation to set for all of society to be constantly confident and strong.' And we thought, how cool would it be for everybody to shout together that they're weak?'

    We were trying to push the idea of a party anthem forward a little bit. Everybody's kind of sick of LMFAO-type party anthems, everyone's moving past that because it's a little dated. So we were thinking what's kind of the next evolution of the party anthem. It's a little bit more insightful than a normal party song, it's a little bit deeper and more emotional."
  • The song was one of the easier ones on The Click album to write. Ryan Met explained: "It took a day. We knew we needed a pre-chorus that ended with 'I should stay strong' and then the chorus that goes, 'But I'm weak' with a huge drop where the punch line comes across to everybody. And as soon as we knew that that was the point of the song, everything else came pretty easy."
  • Jack Met told Genius about the day that the brothers came up with the idea for the song:

    "We were at a concert venue called The Bitter End in New York City," he recalled. "This tiny, little historic venue and Ryan - I believe - went into the bathroom and saw a sticker on the wall that said, The Weaklings, I guess a local band there."

    Ryan Met continued: "I remember thinking, 'That's a very AJR'ish thing to say.' I'm weak, to be self-deprecating like that. So, we brought it back to the living room, and I remember the first thing we came up with for this song was, 'I should stay strong, but I'm weak.' That was the punchline of the song that we knew everything had to be circled around that idea."
  • Ryan Met explained the concept behind the song's bridge:

    "The idea behind a bridge, in general, is supposed to be, 'Here's the song and here, with the bridge is a different perspective on the song.' Like, 'Now I'm introducing a slightly different perspective.' So with the bridge, we wanted to give it the feeling of routine. 'We fall for that. Go to sleep. Wake up. We fall again!' And can't wait to fall again. We wanted to give that alternate perspective of, 'This is just going to keep going on forever.'"

Comments: 1

  • Siahara Shyne Carter from United StatesI have this in my playlist! It is true to life song ;-) Weak have many meanings, This is is cool I just wonder what's the meaning of these line ' boy oh boy I love you when you fall for that ' Is this song for a girl? lol 'One sip bad for me' 'One kiss bad for me' really obviously She is getting away easily xD

    I saw this song in Youtube last 2017 untill now it is in my playlist ;-)
    (2020)


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