“He loves me. He loves me not.”
That childhood chant, often accompanied by picking petals off a flower to determine the final answer, has circulated for centuries. And the tension it illustrates—uncertainty about the status of a romantic relationship—is the focus of singer Ravyn Lenae’s hit single “Love Me Not.”
That said, Lenae’s take on that classic conundrum has less to do with whether the object of her affection is committed to her. Instead, we get an exploration of her own emotional ambivalence. The snaps a self-portrait of a young woman caught in the tug between “can’t live with him” and “can’t live without him.”
Despite that tension, the upbeat track sports a playful nonchalance as Lenae picks her proverbial petals off the flower. She may be full of angst, but it’s not hard to hear how the song’s carefree, old-school vibe has made it a mainstay on TikTok remixes for more than a year now. That ubiquitous presence there has now propelled “Love Me Not” into the rarified air of the Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart.
There’s not a ton here, lyrically, that’s particularly positive or, for that matter, obviously problematic. For the most part, what we hear is a series of statements about how Lenae’s beau inhabits that romantic no man’s land between being all in and calling it quits.
“I need you right now, once I leave you, I’m strung out,” she admits in the first verse. “If I get you, I’m slowly breaking down.” The balance of the song reiterates that lovelorn frustration in different ways. “And, oh, it’s hard to see you, but I wish you were right here,” she sings. “Oh, it’s hard to leave you when I get you everywhere/All this time I’m thinking we could never be a pair/Oh, no, I don’t need you, but I miss you, come here.”
A couple of lines near the middle of the track find Lenae asking God for clear direction, as she prays both that she could finally cut this guy off and that God would somehow make the relationship work: “Lord, take it so far away/I pray that, God, we don’t break.”
The closest we get to anything truly suggestive are a couple of lines that could be heard as implying Lenae and her man spent the night together: “You gotta say that you’re sorry at the end of the night/Wake up in the morning, everything’s alright.” But one could just as easily interpret those lines without that suggestive take, too.
The video for the song features Lenae in a formfitting top and shorts.
Listening to “Love Me Not,” it’s not hard to understand how this breezy soul-pop tune has become a soundtrack to myriad TikTok videos. Sporting an old-school vibe that would have felt right at home in the 1950s or ‘60s, the song is fun, bouncy and playful, the kind of song you hear once and immediately sticks to your mind’s inner eardrum like gum on a sneaker.
And frankly, if you need to have an earwork tunneling into your brain with catchy beats, you could do a lot worse than this innocuous song about unresolved romantic ambivalence.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
