Songfacts®:

• Over delicate guitar, Sevyn Streeter sings of romantic indecision. She said: "If you are interested in somebody and ya'll are dating and you're like, 'I don't know if I should trust him, I don't know if I should let myself fall, but I really like him,' then 'Before I Do' is for you."
• The '90s-sounding ballad samples Aaliyah's cover of The Isley Brothers' "At Your Best (You Are Loved)."
  
  "'Before I Do' isn't trying to be like anything you hear today," Streeter told Rolling Stone "The old me would not have wanted to go with that song. The old me would have been like, 'Let's go with something that feels a little more now.'"
• Streeter recalled the story of the track to Genius:
  
  "This song was written by myself, another writer named Micah, and I don't know if you remember the group Cherish, but one of the writers in Cherish - her name is Felisha. They had already started it when I got it, and I loved it so, so, so much, because it just felt really good. And I remember we had a session. I came in on probably like the second verse. We wrote the second verse together, wrote the bridge together, and just wanted to stay very true to what the narrative was saying."
• The song is about addressing rumors concerning the man that Streeter is interested in: "Every time you enter into a new relationship, what's the first thing that we do?" she told Genius. "We go on Instagram, we go on Twitter, we try to find out who this person dated before us. We hear little things here and there about their past. I heard that you might be dating Mary, Susie, Tiffany, Britney, Ashley, whatever. So you have to confront the person and say, 'Hey this is what I heard. Before I jump to any conclusions, can you uncomplicate this for me?"