Songfacts®:

• Love can make people a little crazy, to the point where they start repeating their words. That's what happens to Rachael Yamagata in this song, as she tries desperately to get some affection:
  
  Everybody's talking how I can't can't be your love
  But I want want want to be your love
  
  Many of her songs have personal inspirations, but they are often transformed into universal themes, as is the case here: everybody craves love. Said Yamagata: "I see pain in other people that I feel and I want to figure out solutions to it. So sometimes the writing is about investigating why we're doing certain things to each other, or why we can't be our authentic selves, and more heady stuff."
• A track from Yamagata's first album, Happenstance, "Be Be Your Love" earned her a lot of attention when it was used on various movies and TV series, notably One Tree Hill and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. "That one had a thing because it got used worldwide," she said. "It actually opened the door for me in Asia, and I've been able to tour quite frequently in Asia. That song was used in quite a few things over there, as well as some things in the US, so that song was super kind to me on that front."
• Yamagata was signed to RCA Records when she released this song in 2004. A few years later she was on Warner Bros., and by 2011 when was independent. She never went back to a major label and took her time making music. After her album Chesapeake in 2011, she didn't put out another until 2016 with Tightrope Walker, and she didn't follow up that one until 2025 with Starlit Alchemy.
• In 2025, Rachael Yamagata told Songfacts how she keeps "Be Be Your Love" fresh decades after releasing it.
  
  "With the early songs, we have to find ways to make them fun because the themes of broken hearts and love stuff were such a 20s and 30s area of age, and what really crushes my heart now is different," she said. "There is such a different threshold as you get older and have people leave your life or watch devastating world events, whatever it is that's ripping you to shreds in a new way."