A jagged blade sandwiched between two very upbeat tracks, “It Hurts” comes as a big of a shell-shock on an album with an otherwise positive outlook.

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It seems that the general opinion is that the content of this song is about a failed romantic relationship, and features the singer reflecting on what went wrong. Another way to view this song (when it’s taken completely in context, and not line by line) is that the singer is telling a linear story in the verses of how he fell for his best friend. The last line of the Pre-Chorus justifies this: “Your best friend is not your girlfriend.”

In brief, this theory holds that the protagonist hangs out with his best friend all the time, and night after night sees her going home with different guys, but trying to play it off. One night, he confronts her, and they’re both so drunk that they hook up. He probably already had some degree of feelings for her, which are only magnified by their sudden physical actions.

Clearly, she doesn’t reciprocate, and he spends the third verse and pre-choruses deriding himself for his carelessness and naiveté. See individual line annotations for in-depth explanations.