 Saadiq's songwriting is characterized by straightforward romanticism, positive exhortations, pining ballads, and message songs. Christgau interpreted Saadiq's persona on the album to be "a romantic who stays true to the deliberate simplicity" of the song titles, but "never threatens to assume the fetal position if he doesn 't get the extreme cuddling he craves." Patrick Varine of the Observer-Dispatch asserted that Saadiq deviates significantly from contemporary R & B lyrics: "there are no thinly-veiled food-sex metaphors or pimp fantasies". His songwriting also paraphrases classic soul lyrics and, on the album's slower songs, expresses tightly coiled emotions. Saadiq said that some songs were written about his life experiences. He described the album as "basically a series of love songs about music, how falling in love can be easy, but staying true to it can be tricky." He elaborated on this interpretation in an interview for the Chicago Tribune: "You have to watch out for those curves. Trendy music comes out, and how do you stay true to what you love? I ’ m not saying everything has to sound like a ' 60s record to stay true, but you should never take the relationship lightly."
