What does Gravity mean?

Sara Bareilles: Gravity Meaning

Album cover for Gravity album cover

Gravity Lyrics

Something always brings me back to you.
It never takes too long.
No matter what I say or do I'll still feel you here 'til the moment I'm gone.

You hold me without touch.
You keep me without chains.
I never wanted anything so much than...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    H2
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    Sep 28th 2013 !⃝

    I was in an abusive relationship. But, I did love him. I finally had the courage to leave. This song to me is about a woman who loves a man but does not want to feel his reign as in she does not want to be abused anymore. She just wants to be set free from the emotional chains he still has around her.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Oct 14th 2014 !⃝

    To me this song is about thinking that you are bad for each other but in the end you know that you keep each other on a realistic ground level reality. This song represents that he is like an addiction to her and some moments may be strained but that is with all relationships. There are moments it becomes hard but she reminds herself why he loves her and why she loves him. This song shows that all that matters in the end is that they are in love and their love is never ending and undying. He keeps her from letting her thoughts run away with her. She is willing to put everything into something to try to make him see what he means to her. This song is only about how true and how pure love can truly be. Love can be painful sometimes, love can be a drug, love can make you feel weighed down but honestly people who has done that for you that you haven't loved? You can't name anyone because it's what your parents did and still do for you. Anyone else that you exiled from your life because you thought they did that a little too harshly, that's hypocritical because you love your parents for doing that for you. She accepts him and herself for the way they both are and wants to bring him up in life and make him think only the best of himself. That's how relationships should be...

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Jan 29th 2013 !⃝

    It is about a never dying love.

  4. anonymous
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    Jun 17th 2020 !⃝

    To me it is about Bulimia; another type of addiction. I think I am free but something always takes me back to it. It has a hold on me. The lyrics are perfect for it.

  5. anonymous
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    Mar 19th 2020 !⃝

    I'm not surprised that so many are moved by this song -- it pairs rich, revealing language with achingly beautifully music. I associate the feelings in this song with college love -- relationships driven by curiosity, sexuality and self-discovery, but also shrouded in confusion and loneliness as only young love can be. Bareilles perfectly captures the self-doubt in her sense of powerlessness, not sure whether the "gravity" emanates from him or from her, but knowing that it weakens her. The song toys with victimhood without surrendering to it. She fears the young man's "reign" over her, but senses that her own compulsions may be behind it. There is sadness either way: it's painful to think of a young man so unfeeling that, sensing a woman's vulnerability, he exploits her rather than reaching out as a friend; and it's sad to see a young woman unable to hold her own in a relationship, and fully aware of this weakness even while it's happening. Yet the magic of the song is that, being sung from the woman's side of the relationship, she projects power by speaking so honestly about her powerlessness. It's a paradox, as is true of much great art. In any case, the good news about relationships like the one that Bareilles is sketching is they happen when you're 19 or 20 (she wrote it when she was 20 -- what an amazing artist!) -- and if you pay attention to your own life, you'll grow out of this vulnerability (or callousness, if you're the man in this story). If you're 40 and you still feel like you're in a relationship like this -- get some help! Powerlessness, whether self-inflicted or imposed by an abuser, is no way to live your whole life.

  6. anonymous
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    Mar 13th 2020 !⃝

    I have NEVER in my life heard a song that describes my situation PERFECTLY! Everything from the key to the arrangement to her voice to when she hits the high note, the lyrics alone are breathtakingly accurate ''Something always brings me back to you...'' every time I think I am finally over him something pulls me back in, he somehow comes back into my life, geographically, emotionally and yes it never takes long.
    ''You hold me without touch, keep me without chains'' He doesn't even know the hold he has on me and we are somehow able to waddle through life like friends with me over here secretly going crazy! ''I thought that I was strong but You touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone'' I always think I am okay and I can do this friends thing with him then he looks into my eyes and LITERALLY all my fragile strength is gone! I honestly thought I was done with him and had moved on but apparently it's gravity and I can't help it. I feel like an addict! Oh and this has been going on for about 5 years...and yes he is neither friend nor foe and I simply can't let him go! Tragically beautiful song!

  7. anonymous
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    Dec 12th 2019 !⃝

    Gravity tells a story about someone who is deeply passionately falling in love with someone they don't want to fall in love with. As she falls more deeply in love with him, she feels herself falling into his gravity every time she sees him.

  8. Jomomma
    click a star to vote
    Jan 29th 2019 !⃝

    For me, this song is about a strong “independent” woman who isn’t looking for love but meets her soulmate, unexpectedly. He sees her for who she truly is, a fragile and delicate lonely person on the inside. She’s scared of the feeling he gives her as he completes that emptiness she didn’t realize she had. He melts any walls she had built around her heart. “Keeping me down” shows that he’s her perfect balance as keeps her grounded in a honest patient love. He doesn’t smother her nor does he make her feel intraped but he’s holding & keeping her unlike anything she’s experienced. Beacause she’s never had stability like this before, she wants to run but when he touches her it’s calms her restlessness. No matter how hard she try’s to pretend she doesn’t need him there’s no escaping fate. She feels him all around her when she’s alone. He doesn’t push her but his gravity pulls her back into his heart when she pushes him away.

  9. anonymous
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    May 22nd 2017 !⃝

    A man having a relationship with 2 woman. One just there according to him and the other one with strong feelings. But he can't choose because they both have something he wants. The one in love with him who the song is about loves him and can't let go of him no matter how much she tries. He has her chained even though she knows deep down she needs to let go because he won't. So she's asking him to let her go and he won't and she doesn't have the courage to do so. She tries and tries and all she does is get hurt.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  10. anonymous
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    Nov 3rd 2016 !⃝

    No one seems to think that it is about addiction. If you listen to the song in the context of addiction it makes more sense than an abusive relationship or any thing else.

  11. anonymous
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    Nov 9th 2015 !⃝

    No matter how hard i try not to think of her, she is always there. Even when we are in a relationship of our own and we tried to move on without each other in our lives. That love always comes back even stronger than before. We have never really tried to break free to be together. Those feelings never left me and talking with her, they never left her either. This song to me represents my relationship now, where i am addicted to her fragile state, which i have brought her down, not showing her i care and am not in love with her as i once was. But when she is fragile, i am more attached to her, not able to let her go. Gravity keeps me down with her, but then i want to escape, but i can't... you do what you think is right, even though you think its wrong, it could be right. The bigger the sacrifice, the bigger the reward...

  12. anonymous
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    Aug 15th 2014 !⃝

    She is trying her best to forget him. Because she knows staying with him is going to end up in hopelessness. Its not that she doesn't want him but its that he is not doing anything to make this better for both of them. Even if she let him go, she ends up coming back to him because the thing is, he can't let go of her. He keeps moving around her and she, despite building all those walls around her and pretending to not care, ends up caring even more for him. He may or may not be in contact, it doesn't matter anymore. As long as he shows he loves her too.

  13. anonymous
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    Jan 22nd 2014 !⃝

    Dangerous. That's what she described this potential love affair to married man. The initial peaked interest quickly turned into a unexplainable spark. Started as a fling and ended in falling for one another. While both are unable to leave their established lives with family, the pull or gravity keeps them coming back. She has tried to leave, but keeps coming back. He started off using her- ended up scared after one of their more passionate meetings- why? because he felt the same love as she did at the same moment?
    He won't let himself go with this new passion. Walls up Keeping her down. Lacks passion in his marriage- finds it with another. But wants to fix his passionless marriage. She is fine with it- but gravity pulls her. Keeps her tied down to him. He won't except her goodbye- she doesn't really want him to. She wants him to say goodbye- makes it easier. Set me free she asks. Cut the ties. They barely have time to see each other but she can't stop thinking of him. He said he can't love two people the same way. She wants out. Too late. She is attached. He wants his lifestyle and she wants to be with him. She wants to be free. Dangerous to her heart, to their surroundings.
    Good luck babe- hope counseling helps. Hope passion is found at home. I was falling hard and fast. Gravity. Detaching. Hope this helps. I will m.u. more than you know. ILY.

  14. anonymous
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    Nov 16th 2013 !⃝

    He consumes her thoughts like an addiction, she'll never move on and her thoughts are constantly thinking of him. craving yearning. he has the ability to comfort her in her thoughts without him being around. it only ended because he treated her bad, not becuase she does not love him. when she's away from him she is who she is meant to be than she just keeps falling into his gravity again

  15. anonymous
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    Aug 23rd 2013 !⃝

    When i first heard this song it was on a dance show and the interpretation of this song in dance was for anyone who had an addiction and trying to get through it.

  16. amy.ostlerlaflamme
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    Oct 28th 2012 !⃝

    If you or anyone very close to you has ever struggled with addiction this song takes a complete new meaning aside from the heartache of a relationship gone bad between two people. In addiction you are held without touch, kept without chains. Want to feel the love but not the rain and will feel your addiction until you die. It is niether friend not foe but you can't let it go and it will always keep you down if you allow it to. You will always beg it to let you be, set you free you don't want to fall another moment into it's gravity and you do live on your knees. That is what this song represents to me.

  17. anonymous
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    Oct 2nd 2012 !⃝

    It is something with emotions felt by someone who has not getting over by him. That happens all over again to herself of whatever she is doing or saying, even she wants to moved on but the sentiment is still there.
    CHo: She wants to let go because if she won't she can never learn to recover or maybe having fears to be drown back with his love.
    Yet the irony is, she wanted to ease but she can't seems to.

  18. anonymous
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    Apr 10th 2012 !⃝

    This is a beautiful song, about a girl who loves what she had with a guy but feels that it's time for her to move on.

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