Love Me 4 Me

Song by Rina Sawayama

## Audio

"**Love Me 4 Me**" is the seventh track from Rina Sawayama's debut studio album *Sawayama*, released on 17 April 2020 through Dirty Hit. The song was written by Rina with Nicole Morier and the song's producer Bram Inscore, and in it the singer refers to the self-love she seeks in herself. If she doesn't love herself, no one else will be able to love her.

## Background

Rina said that the song is about "how people forget to work on themselves before going in headfirst in relationships with others. If you can't love yourself there's no way you can love someone else."

She also said about the song:

> For me, this was a message to myself. I was feeling so under-confident with my work and everything. I think on the first listen it just sounds like trying to get a lover to love you, but it’s not at all. Everything is said to the mirror. That’s why the spoken bit at the beginning and after the middle eight is like: “If you can’t love yourself, how are you going to love somebody else?” That’s a RuPaul quote, so it makes me really happy, but it’s so true. I think that’s very fundamental when being in a relationship—you’ve got to love yourself first. I think self-love is really hard, and that’s the overall thing about this record: It’s about trying to find self-love within all the complications, whether it’s identity or sexuality. I think it’s the purest, happiest on the record. It’s like that New Jack Swing-style production, but originally it had like an ‘80s sound. That didn’t work with the rest of the record, so we went back and reproduced it.
>
> — via Apple Music

## Critical reception

On her review of the song's parent album *Sawayama*, Erin Bashford of *The Line of Best Fit* described "Love Me 4 Me" as "a nod to retro hip-hop". While Johnny King of Sputnikmusic wrote that the song "wraps the notion of potentially problematic self-fashioning for romantic convenience into one of the album’s best lines (You wanna love me for me / If I made it easy) and drops it alongside the hugest get-off-your-chair-and-fuckin’-dance groove you’ll hear from any artist this year. Ambivalent, maybe, but also irresistible." According to Lexi Lane, from *Atwood Magazine*, "Love Me 4 Me" serves "straight Xtina [Aguilera] realness."

## Live performances

"Love Me 4 Me" was part of the regular set list of the Dynasty Tour, which began on 8 November 2021 in Dublin, Ireland.

## Lyrics

Baby, I've been telling you

If you can't love yourself

How are you going to love somebody else?

Every day, I wanna start over

'Cause I remind me of me

At my worst, I let my mirror

Tell me lies, saying I

I gotta do right, be nice, smile just like a lady (Like a lady)

I gotta work hard, make up, hair done like a star (Like a star)

I gotta be that angel, good girl, soft and sexy (Woah, oh)

Well, I don't care, I don't care who you are (Who you are)

You wanna love me for me

If I made it, I made it easy

You wanna love me for me

If I made it, I made it easy

Every time I let you in (Every time)

My mind, you find remedies

But you can't fix me, you can't win

So goodbye, goodbye

I gotta do right, be nice, smile just like a lady (Like a lady)

I gotta work hard, make up, hair done like a star (Like a star)

I gotta be that angel, good girl, soft and sexy (Woah, oh)

Well, I don't care, I don't care who you are (Who you are)

You wanna love me for me

If I made it, I made it easy

You wanna love me for me

If I made it, I made it easy

If you can't love yourself

How are you going to love somebody else?

You wanna love me for me

If I made it, I made it easy

You wanna love me for me

If I made it, I made it easy (I know I got what you want, but)

You wanna love me for me (You wanted more than I got, love)

If I made it, I made it easy (This is a message for me)

You wanna love me for me (I can finally breathe)

If I made it, I made it easy

## References

1. ↑ 07. Love Me 4 Me by Team Rina
2. ↑ SAWAYAMA by Rina Sawayama on Apple Music
3. ↑ *The Line of Best Fit.* Rina Sawayama - SAWAYAMA
4. ↑ Sputnikmusic. Review: Rina Sawayama - Sawayama
5. ↑ *Atwood Magazine.* Review: Rina Sawayama’s Debut LP ‘SAWAYAMA’ Is the Epitome of Brilliant & Badass Hyperpop