Love Yourself

Album

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going

Label

Def Jam Recordings

Genre

Blue-eyed soul

Composer(s)

Justin Bieber;Benjamin Levin;lEd Sheeran

Entered Chart

Dec 5, 2015

Peak Date

Feb 13, 2016

Released

Unknown

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Schoolboy/Raymond Braun Digital

Ed Sheeran co-wrote this Purpose track. "We wrote a song together and basically it's one of my favorites on the album," Bieber revealed to UK radio station, Capital FM. "It's just me and a guitar and basically that's how I started. I started playing on the street with a guitar and so it's cool to go back to my roots." Asked by Capital FM's Roman Kemp if the song is about his own past experiences with a girlfriend, Bieber replied: "Yeah, it is but you know I don't want to make anyone upset so I'm not going to say it to the public." The song replaced Bieber's own "Sorry" at #1 on the UK singles chart, matching a record previously held by just The Beatles and Elvis Presley. The Beatles were the last living act to achieve the feat in December 1963, when "I Want To Hold Your Hand" replaced "She Loves You" at the top. In 2005 reissues of Elvis' singles "Jailhouse Rock" and "One Night/I Got Stung" went to the summit of the charts in successive weeks. The music video features husband-and-wife dancers Keone and Mari Madrid dancing their way through their house. 23-year-old Parris Goebel, the founder of the New Zealand ReQuest dance crew, directed the clip. She also choreographed Justin Bieber's "Sorry" visual. "Love Yourself" also replaced "Sorry" at #1 on the US chart dated February 13, 2016. It was the third consecutive US #1 hit from Purpose ("What Do You Mean?" was the first), making it the first album by a male artist to generate three consecutive chart-toppers since Justin Timberlake's FutureSex / LoveSounds almost 10 years previously. Report this ad The song represented Ed Sheeran's first trip as a songwriter to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. He'd previously reached #2 with his own "Thinking Out Loud." At the Grammy Awards ceremony in 2016, Bieber performed this song alone with an acoustic guitar before joining Skrillex and Diplo for a high-energy rendition of "Where Are U Now." This won for Favorite Pop/Rock Song at the 2016 American Music Awards. Bieber was the big winner of the evening, with four awards: he also won for Favorite Male Artist, Video of the Year ("Sorry") and Favorite Album (Purpose). Ed Sheeran originally wrote this for his ÷ album, but gave it to Justin Bieber as he'd decided not to record the tune. "That was a song I had written for ÷. It just wouldn't have made it," he told Carson Daly on 97.1 AMP Radio. "And then Justin took it and did his thing on it, and released it as a single and made it what it is." He continued: "So going from a song that would have never been released to [being] the biggest song of last year - it just became Billboard's #1 of 2016 of the whole year, and [was] nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys - it just shows you that you shouldn't always write stuff off." Sheeran refused to take all the credit for the song, telling Carson Daly, "He (Justin) did have input on it. I wouldn't say it was just all me." Ed Sheeran told UK newspaper The Sun he has no regrets about not recording the song himself: "A lot of people say, 'Do you wish you finished that and kept it for yourself?' But in my year off I had that song and Cold Water, and both kept me in the public eye without me being in the public eye. So it came as a blessing. I don't think Justin owes me. I think that song did quite well. I think I'm alright." Ed Sheeran and Benny Blanco wrote this after attending Drake and Future's album release party in Canada. On board the tour bus taking them back to the United States, the two decided to stay up all night waiting to get to the border. Blanco and Sheeran wrote a song in order to kill time. Blanco explained to Karson and Annie from Boston's Mix 104.1: "We go to the back and we start writing the beginnings of a song, and we actually finished it the next day, and… that song was 'Love Yourself." Out of the many songs Ed Sheeran has co-written for other artists, he considers this his favorite. "I feel like the one that is the slam dunk, whenever I'm at a gig, to play someone else's song that I had written is "Love Yourself" by Justin Bieber because it was so massive for him," Sheeran told Jack Antonoff in a December 2021 Audacy video chat. "I think it's his biggest song... anywhere in the world, if I picked up a guitar and played that, they'd be like 'oh my god, you wrote that!'" "People always say, 'Why didn't you keep it?' And to be honest, he was on such a roll at that point that I think it wouldn't have been as big if I'd sung it," he continued. "He had his whole period of his life that was a bit... you know what I mean. And America loves a comeback story."

For all the times that you rained on my parade
And all the clubs you get in using my name
You think you broke my heart, oh girl for goodness sake
You think I'm crying on my own, well I ain't

And I didn't wanna write a song 'cause I didn't want anyone thinking I still care
I don't but, you still hit my phone up
And baby I'll be movin' on and I think you should be somethin'
I don't wanna hold back, maybe you should know that
My mama don't like you and she likes everyone
And I never like to admit that I was wrong
And I've been so caught up in my job, didn't see what's going on
But now I know, I'm better sleeping on my own

'Cause if you like the way you look that much
Oh baby, you should go and love yourself
And if you think that I'm still holdin' on to somethin'
You should go and love yourself

When you told me that you hated my friends
The only problem was with you and not them
And every time you told me my opinion was wrong
And tried to make me forget where I came from

And I didn't wanna write a song 'cause I didn't want anyone thinking I still care
I don't but, you still hit my phone up
And baby, I be movin' on and I think you should be somethin'
I don't wanna hold back, maybe you should know that
My mama don't like you and she likes everyone
And I never like to admit that I was wrong
And I've been so caught up in my job, didn't see what's going on
But now I know, I'm better sleeping on my own

'Cause if you like the way you look that much
Oh baby, you should go and love yourself
And if you think that I'm still holdin' on to somethin'
You should go and love yourself

For all the times that you made me feel small
I fell in love, now I feel nothin' at all
I never felt so low when I was vulnerable
Was I a fool to let you break down my walls?

'Cause if you like the way you look that much
Oh baby, you should go and love yourself
And if you think that I'm still holdin' on to somethin'
You should go and love yourself
'Cause if you like the way you look that much
Oh baby, you should go and love yourself (yeah)
And if you think (you think) that I'm (that I'm)
Still holdin' on to somethin'
You should go and love yourself