Music
Rosé's "Number One Girl" Lyrics, Explained
“I'd do anything to make you want me.”
Rosé just released her most heartbreaking song ever. On “Number One Girl,” the BLACKPINK hitmaker exposes her deep yearning to be loved and accepted, pleading with the listener to tell her all the things she longs to hear.
The song starts with Rosé seemingly addressing a romantic interest, asking her partner to reassure her in the relationship:
Tell me that I'm special / Tell me I look pretty / Tell me I'm a little angel / Sweetheart of your city.
But the lyrics aren’t simply romantic. On the second verse, Rosé seems to confess she also needs validation in her career, be it from fans or from within the music industry: “Tell me I'm that new thing / Tell me that I'm relevant.”
However, on the power ballad’s soaring chorus, Rosé tells her partner that she would throw everything else away for their affection:
I'd do anything to make you want me / I'd give it all up if you told me / That I'd be / The number one girl in your eyes.
The heartbreaking track is a major divergence from the up-tempo lead single from her solo album Rosie, “Apt.” Rosé revealed to i-D that “Number One Girl” will be the first song on Rosie, and it was inspired by a sleepless night where the singer couldn’t stop fixating on what people on the internet were saying about her.
“I had been on the internet ‘til like 5 a.m. — I couldn’t sleep because I was so obsessed with what these people were gonna say about me and what I wanted them to say about me,” Rosé said. “I was so disgusted at myself for it — I never wanted to admit it to anyone, I didn’t even want to admit it to myself. But I had to be fully honest in the studio.”
In the song’s music video, which Rosé directed herself, the pop star runs around an empty Seoul at night.
Rosie will be released Dec. 6.
