Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Alessia Cara’s music frequently deals with weighty emotions, and on her latest single, “Not Today,” the singer wrestles with the turbulent period after a relationship. The track is one of several songs on her upcoming album, The Pains of Growing, informed by a breakup.
On the Jon Levine-produced track, Cara recognizes that she’s going through a stormy period that she’ll eventually recover from, giving herself permission to feel badly in the moment. She sings:
One day I’ll swear the pain will be a blip
I’ll have the hardest time recalling it
I’ll be the king of misery management
But surely not today
In an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, Cara revealed that “Not Today” is one of the final songs she wrote for The Pains of Growing and talked about capturing the in-between emotions that come after something traumatic occurs.
I went through the end of a relationship and just really really bad time, so this song to me was that grieving period in the middle of healing I guess. The period of time before you actually get to the healing stage…There’s a stage that we don’t often talk about a lot or try to rush through, which is not very good, where you need to grieve whatever you lost or whatever is going on. You have to just go through the period where you feel miserable, and that’s what this song is about.
She also wrote on Twitter that the song is about “feeling miserable and realizing it was okay to bask in it until I was ready to try happiness again.”
On “Trust My Lonely,” another track off The Pains of Growing, Cara also sings of a contentious breakup that seems to be the same one that inspired “Not Today.” On “Trust,” she sings:
Go get your praise from someone else
You did a number on my health
My world is brighter by itself
And I can do better, do better
Alessia Cara appeared on Genius' Verified series to break down her track “Growing Pains.”
Read the full lyrics to “Not Today” and the rest of Alessia Cara’s discography on Genius now.
