Loser

Album: Charlie (2022)
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, Charlie Puth beats himself up for allowing his romantic partner to slip away. He didn't pay her enough attention and wasn't around when she needed him. She was Puth's one in a million dream girl, but the pop star messed things up and now he's struggling to move on.
  • Puth co-wrote "Loser" with his regular writing partner Jacob Kasher. He produced the song himself.
  • Puth revealed that the creation of "Loser" started with its title when he was having a shower. He recalled a romantic relationship that he messed up and made him feel like a loser. "I'm a singer living in LA, I'm seeing too many people and I'm a loser," Puth remembered to Apple Music. "I followed up with, 'How'd I ever lose her?' And it just happens to rhyme."
  • Puth released "Loser" as the seventh single from Charlie on October 7, 2022, the same day the album came out. Inspired by a breakup in 2019, he wrote for the record, "feelings first, music to follow."

    "These thoughts spin in my head like a dishwasher," Puth explained to Apple Music. "I put them against a beat, add some melody, and when the song is finished, it's like putting a letter in a glass bottle and sending it off into the ocean."
  • The singer plays dueling characters in the crazy Wild West-themed video with no clear storyline. Puth said he was warned against making the video, which makes no sense in the song's context. "I just wanted to make it," he told Billboard Pop Shop podcast. "There is no story. I don't preface anything as to why the two are dueling or battling."

    "Several famous directors have reached out to my creative director and said 'I didn't know Charlie acted!' So maybe I did a good job," Puth added. "I was told that I should never make a video like that."

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