If You Say So

Album: Louder (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • When Lea Michele's boyfriend and fellow Glee star Cory Monteith died in July 2013, the singer decided to put her debut album on hold, despite completing it the previous month. She then sat down with songwriter Sia Furler to see if there was anything else she wanted to share. "We just were talking and seeing if we wanted to add anything to the record," Michele told MTV News. "Cory had heard every song from the album, obviously with the exception of ['Cannonball']. And I figured I had the opportunity, if I want to add anything, and we sat down and we came up with 'If You Say So,' which is a very, very, very personal, it's a very personal and it's a very intense song for me."
  • Michele worked closely with Furler for Louder. As well as this song, the Australian singer-songwriter also contributed "Battlefield," "You're Mine" and "Cannonball." "I owe so much to [Sia]. I think we just click. It was beyond an honor to sing her songs," Michele told MTV News. "To get to have the honor of her helping me to write 'If You Say So' [after Monteith died], no one else could have done that. I'm very thankful to her because, as hard as it is, I have that song and it means so much to me."
  • The haunting tribute ballad takes place a week after Monteith's passing and tells the story of their last conversation.

    "You said I love you girl.
    I said I love you more.
    And a breath, a pause, you said, if you say so
    If you say so. If you say so."

    Michele told Seventeen magazine: "I spoke to a woman who lost her son, and she mentioned how grateful she was that the last words she said to her son before he died were, 'I love you.' Mine were that as well."

    "[The song] is just about that," she added. "There are lots of different emotions-if you could see this person again, what are the things you would want to say to them? It's a personal story."
  • Sia drew on her own experience of having her own boyfriend killed by a taxi in London when helping Michele write this song.

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