We Don't Talk Anymore

Album

Finding It Hard to Smile

Label

Atlantic Records

Genre

Dance-pop

Composer(s)

Charlie Puth;Selena Gomez;Jacob Kasher Hindlin

Entered Chart

Feb 20, 2016

Peak Date

Oct 8, 2016

Released

May 24, 2016

Recorded

2015

Catalog #

Artist Partners Group

Charlie Puth wrote this breakup song in Tokyo, Japan. He recalled to MTV News: "I was in my hotel room, at the Mandarin Hotel, looking out at this wonderful city from the top floor, and I called my guitarist who was in the next room and I said, 'Dude, can you come to my room really quickly and play this guitar line?' I didn't have a microphone, so I recorded his guitar with my iPhone, and I put it in the mix. Then, we went to the Philippines the next day, and I put the kick drum in." "I remember a conversation I had had with my friend," Puth continued. "He had just broken up with this girl, and I was like, 'So, are you going to talk to her anymore?' And he was like, 'Nah, we don't talk anymore.' I was trying to cheer him up, so I did a dumb little face, and I was like, [singing] 'We don't talk anymore.' I was just trying to cheer him up, but it became a cool melody, and I realized that this guitar beat fit perfectly over it." Puth trades verses with Selena Gomez as both wonder how a past relationship went wrong. "I met up with Selena, and she went through a very public relationship, on and off, and she could just relate to the song and the lyrical sentiment," he said. "I was playing the song for her, and she just started singing the second verse. I got chills. I was like, 'Oh my gosh, that sounds so real. You need to sing on it.' And she said yes." Instead of a bridge, this incorporates a third pre-chorus, which is an unusual tactic for a Top 10 hit, which typically features two. Only three other Top 10 hits in 2016 used three pre-choruses: Kent Jones' "Don't Mind," Meghan Trainor's "No" and Adele's "Send My Love (To Your Lover)." In "We Don't Talk Anymore," Puth takes the lead on the first pre-chorus, Gomez on the second, and they share lead on the third after an instrumental break. These sections reflect the post-breakup jealousy both are struggling with, as neither wants to imagine the other moving on. The original inspiration for the lyrics came about when Puth was driving on Santa Monica Boulevard with his friend, whom he hadn't seen in four months. He recalled to AT40: "Last time I saw him he was so infatuated and in love with this girl, and would literally talk about her every second, and always just literally with the ups and downs and the sideways and whatever." "When I saw him after four months of not seeing him, of being on tour, I was like, Oh, how is so and so doing? And he was like, Oh, we don't talk anymore. And literally as he said that I was like, 'We don't talk anymore. We don't talk anymore. We don't talk anymore. Like we used to do.' Simple." Asked by Billboard magazine whether he knew the song would be a hit, Charlie Pugh replied, "To me, the weirder the recording process is, the bigger the hit it will be. It did not happen overnight like 'See You Again,' though. The verse took about a month for me to perfect. Once [we] finished the lyrics over FaceTime... I knew it would be something special." By starting with the chorus, the song immediately grabs the listener with its primary lyrical and vocal hook: the song title. To keep it fresh despite the title being repeated 19 times throughout, Puth and Gomez trade off their vocal duties. We don't exactly know why these two couldn't make it work, and that's what makes the song so relatable: Anyone can project their own failed relationship with their own particular messy details. Selena Gomez recorded her vocals in a hotel closet. "I wanted to make a record that has that international type feel to it," Puth told People. "Selena came on to it, and it completed it all." "I'm good friends with her now, and we talked about wanting to collaborate, and I was finishing the song, and I was like, 'Wouldn't it be cool if you sang the second verse?' And that's really how it happened," he continued. "She came over; she recorded it. I didn't even have a studio set up; she recorded it in my closet, and it really added a lot to the record." According to Charlie Puth, the song was very much a case of art imitating life. The singer told Billboard that he had a real life fling with Selena Gomez, which left him heartbroken, but inspired this track. "It's about a particular moment in my life, when someone very close to me wanted the attention of somebody else," he explained coyly. "When I found that out and we ended it, I might have done some shady things too, and she might have asked me, 'How long has this been going on?'" "I don't kiss and tell," Puth added, "but the only way a song like that can come across as real is if there's something else going on behind the scenes. And that's what was happening [with Gomez] Very short-lived, very small, but very impactful. And it really messed me up." "I'm trying to put this the best way possible," he continued. "It wasn't like I was the only person on her mind. And I think I knew that going in - what I was getting myself into." "You gather up a bunch of emotion with the life shovel, throw it in the life bucket, mix it up," Puth concluded. "And she evoked such good emotion on that song, it was a pleasure working with her. That's why I'm always happy to sing it, even though it came from a dark point in my life." According to People, Puth's memory is somewhat inaccurate and the romance never happened: A source told the site the pair "never dated." The song was inspired by a nasty bout of food poisoning. "I was overseas one time and got this horrible stomach pain just from this undercooked food," Puth recalled to Apple Music Beats 1. "As I was moaning in bed in my hotel room, I came up with this really good song idea. And that song idea was 'We Don't Talk Anymore,' which is kind of strange."

We don't talk anymore, we don't talk anymore
We don't talk anymore, like we used to do
We don't love anymore
What was all of it for?
Oh, we don't talk anymore, like we used to do

I just heard you found the one you've been looking
You've been looking for
I wish I would have known that wasn't me
'Cause even after all this time I still wonder
Why I can't move on
Just the way you did so easily

Don't wanna know
What kind of dress you're wearing tonight
If he's holding onto you so tight
The way I did before
I overdosed
Should've known your love was a game
Now I can't get you out of my brain
Oh, it's such a shame

That we don't talk anymore, we don't talk anymore
We don't talk anymore, like we used to do
We don't love anymore
What was all of it for?
Oh, we don't talk anymore, like we used to do

I just hope you're lying next to somebody
Who knows how to love you like me
There must be a good reason that you're gone
Every now and then I think you
Might want me to come show up at your door
But I'm just too afraid that I'll be wrong

Don't wanna know
If you're looking into her eyes
If she's holding onto you so tight the way I did before
I overdosed
Should've known your love was a game
Now I can't get you out of my brain
Oh, it's such a shame

That we don't talk anymore (we don't, we don't)
We don't talk anymore (we don't, we don't)
We don't talk anymore, like we used to do
We don't love anymore (we don't, we don't)
What was all of it for? (we don't, we don't)
Oh, we don't talk anymore, like we used to do

Like we used to do

Don't wanna know
What kind of dress you're wearing tonight
If he's giving it to you just right
The way I did before
I overdosed
Should've known your love was a game
Now I can't get you out of my brain
Oh, it's such a shame

That we don't talk anymore (we don't, we don't)
We don't talk anymore (we don't, we don't)
We don't talk anymore, like we used to do
We don't love anymore (we don't, we don't)
What was all of it for? (we don't, we don't)
Oh, we don't talk anymore, like we used to do

We don't talk anymore, oh, oh
(What kind of dress you're wearing tonight)
(If he's holding onto you so tight)
The way I did before
We don't talk anymore, oh, woah
(Should've known your love was a game)
(Now I can't get you out of my brain)
Ooh, it's such a shame
That we don't talk anymore