Imperfect For You

Album: Eternal Sunshine (2024)
Charted: 37
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Songfacts®:

  • Following her separation from Dalton Gomez in July 2023, Ariana Grande entered a relationship with her Wicked co-star, Ethan Slater. Slater, still married to his wife, Lilly Jay, filed for divorce three months later. This period's complexities fueled "Imperfect For You," the penultimate track on her album Eternal Sunshine.
  • The title is a twist on "I'm perfect for you," hinting at the inherent beauty found in embracing imperfections within a relationship.
  • Grande described "Imperfect For You" to Apple Music's Zane Lowe as not just a love song but also an ode to the unwavering support found in genuine connections with "accepting and real" loved ones, including friends and family.
  • Grande co-wrote "Imperfect For You" with Swedish producers Max Martin and Ilya, her core collaborators on Eternal Sunshine. It was the last song they wrote for the album.
  • The song's dissonance emphasizes the discomfort and awkwardness of embracing imperfection. Speaking to Zach Sang via Amazon Music, Grande said "Imperfect for You" is sonically her favorite track on Eternally Sunshine.

    "It's very different for me, it's very trippy, Rubber Soul vibes, and that is my favorite music to listen to and I don't think I ever explored it for myself," she said. "It just felt really fun to lean in to it and make something super trippy, '60s, organic feeling, just capturing that kind of thing."
  • Grande debuted "Imperfect For You" live when she performed the song on the March 9, 2024 episode of Saturday Night Live. After being introduced by her mother Joan, she sang the song on an outdoorsy background with a backdrop of a wheat field.

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