Trust My Lonely

Album: The Pains of Growing (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • Alessia Cara found herself caught up in a toxic relationship where her partner poked fun at her and used her. It affected the singer's health, but now she's free of the dude.

    Don't you know that you're bad for me
    I gotta trust my lonely


    Cara realizes she's better off alone.
  • Cara wrote the song with "Oak" Felder and "Pop" Wansel. The production duo collaborated with the Canadian songstress on her breakthrough hits "Here" and "Scars to Your Beautiful."
  • Cara explained the song is about the "human instinct to hold onto things that aren't good for us" as at times we're scared of being without them and they become a comfort blanket. It could be a toxic relationship or a bad friendship, but in her case it was "internal black clouds and voices of doubt," both her own and other peoples.
  • Cara told Billboard that she initially wrote the song because of her insecurities. "I think a lot of people, we become comfortable in our misery or comfortable in a relationship that may be bad for us," she explained. "This song was just a reminder for me and for everyone to just trust yourself and let go of things don't serve you in a positive way, especially your heart and your soul."
  • The video shows Cara dressed in the same oversized suit she wore in her "Growing Pains" visual as well as several live appearances. We see her dancing in front of a large series of differently colored backdrops. "It's like an artistic way of symbolizing the idea of growing up," she explained. "Sometimes you kind of feel like you're drowning and you feel like you're not ready for the roles life throws at you, so this was my way of symbolizing it in an artistic way."
  • Alessia Cara purposely chose to write the empowering lyrics for this song by herself. She explained in a video interview:

    "In the very beginning stages, I decided that I wanted to write this by myself, and so I was having a lot of insecurities about that. I was feeling like a lot of voices of doubt around me that maybe didn't want to say that they were doubting me but I could feel it and... in turn, I started doubting myself.

    And then I came up with the concept or the title 'Trust My Lonely' because initially, it was, I gotta trust myself to write this thing by myself. And then, I decided to just take all of my insecurities and all of those voices of doubt from others and within myself, and just pretend I was talking to somebody and breaking up with them. Like a reminder to trust myself and not think too hard, and, you know, that I can be okay on my own - whether that's with writing an album, or just living life."

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