“Just Give Me a Reason” is a song written and recorded by American singer and songwriter Pink featuring fun.’s lead singer Nate Ruess. The song was chosen as the third single from Pink’s sixth studio album, The Truth About Love (2012). “Just Give Me a Reason” is a pop ballad written by both artists and produced by Jeff Bhasker. It starts off with a simple melody played on the piano, as Pink starts to sing the first verse and chorus, the latter of which introduces drum machines and bass. The second verse is then sung by Ruess, and the rest of the song is sung as a duet. The song ends with a piano solo, similar to the intro. It has a duration of four minutes and two seconds.
“Just Give Me a Reason” features Nate Ruess from the American band Fun. Originally, it was just a song writing session but Pink realized that she needed someone else to sing the song with her because she thought that it was more of a conversation than a one perspective song. She asked Ruess to do it with her and got him to do the song as a duet. The song is about the desire to hold on to a relationship even when it appears to be breaking down. Common Sense Media (CSM) said Pink, singer from band fun team up in sweet love tune. Billboard also gave a positive review of the song saying this duet with the band’s lead singer Nate Ruess (produced by “We Are Young” helmer Jeff Bhasker) would fit right at home on “Some Nights.” Although it’s a little jarring to hear Pink’s raw, live vocals paired with Ruess’ Auto-Tune, it’s ultimately a less-schmaltzy version of those male/female duets found at the end credits of every 80s movie. HitFix said One of the highlights is her duet with fun.’s Nate Ruess, who co-wrote “Just Give Me A Reason”.
In my opinion, I like this song very much not only because its unique melody, but also its background story. The video shows Pink lying on a mattress in the middle of an artificial marsh, with fog surrounding the set and a star-studded background. The video is highly symbolic and its storyline is indirect, with references supporting the song’s theme, including a teddy bear, a TV floating on the surface of water, the water itself and a wall made of wood in the background. The scenes include Pink’s solo mattress scene, another with Nate Ruess shows the two singers singing the song in a white, blank set, and a third scene showing Pink and her husband Carey Hart embracing and diving. From the video, we can see that the singer add deep emotion into the song in order to let audience understand his emotion clearly. We are not difficult to imagine the background story through singer’s expression.
Pink duets with Ruess on the track, but she had to trick him into singing his part. She recalled to Spotify: “I was like, ‘no, this is a story, this is a conversation this song’ – it needs the other perspective whether it’s a guy and a girl, or two girls or two guys. ‘I came in and tried to convince him that this was how the conversation was going to go and it was interesting you know, he was like ‘I’ll just do the demo cos I don’t know about duets’ and I totally tricked him into doing it, and I am so glad I was able to. ‘I think now he’s very happy that he did it, I think it’s a beautiful song and I’m really, really proud of it.” I think this feedback makes this song very great because the song contains real emotion will become vivid.
Some people don’t understand that this is a temporary state and some people expect to be courted for eternity but realistically no one has time to make every hour of everyday about another person. So when all of this stuff fades away and a realistic era emerges the surprises are less powerful and less frequent. It can be rather shocking to realize that you are not their only obligation and if you go out once a month you are lucky. Instead of treasuring what they have they instead become resentful claiming that they rarely spend time together anymore. In conclusion, I think people can really learn something through this song.
( :)This is my last reflection for ACH class this semester, I hope all of you enjoy reading my post and I will miss the time I spend on the reflection very much. 🙁 … )
Work Cited
http://www.thomasvan.com/song-translations/the-meaning-of-just-give-me-a-reason
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Give_Me_a_Reason
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=27327
Wow, thanks Stella for an amazing amount of detail behind this one. In some sense I guess I agree with the reviewer who said the song is “schmaltzy” but hey who says the world can’t use a little “schmaltz” now and then! I don’t know whether Nate ever decided he liked duets but I can say that in my opinion this song is made ten times better by the two voices not one. The whole storyline that this is two people with two differing views is reinforced by that simple musical device.
Interesting class note – Marissa wrote a post about a different song but also commented on how much she loves duets, “personally I’m a big fan of duets;”