The song “Lose” by the Indonesian singer NIKI was released on a lazy day of August, 2020 (right in the middle of the pandemic), and was the third single from her debut album “Moonchild”. It is an emotional piano ballad about the narrator and their bumpy relationship with someone she desired to fight for the hardest, the Moon, a metaphorical image of someone NIKI might have at some point of her life. This song captured the excruciating pain of keeping this person and making their relationship last, and finally accepting the realization that they would end up hurting each other even further should they stay in the relationship. Let’s deep dive how “Lose” by NIKI captured my melodramatic heart with my favorite verses and see why this song got stuck into my head for days.

“I will never know if you love me

Or my company, but I don't mind

'Cause I ain't tryna be the one

Been through this a thousand times”

According to NIKI, this verse brought the listener to a trip down memory lane on what she described in a Genius interview as “a toxic situation at some point in the past”. In this verse, NIKI pointed out that this part of her life brought her to a situation that caused her to stick to familiarity, no matter how toxic it was, because it is what’s comfortable. “It’s just like, you want it to work so bad that even if you don’t really like me for me, even if you don’t fuck with me like that, it’s fine. I don’t mind”. This verse is a teaser, a glimpse of how the entirety of the song is all about how they endured the pain of staying for the sake of it. She never cleared it out if this is about a former romantic partner nor a failed situationship, though, but she indicated in this verse that this experience was a lesson that was learned the hardest.

I can feel the misery with just this verse alone. The “I don’t mind” part is a signal, or a red flag, that this relationship is doomed to end since the narrator could be constantly shrugging off their feelings in favor of the other. It is somewhat apparent that in this verse, the narrator is telling us that they love the other, even if she is unsure if the other loves them back, and with that, she “don’t mind”. What is interesting is that this verse not only applies to romantic affairs but also to some of our relationships that are ruining us through countless papercut wounds, may it be a family member, a friend, a job you hated, or a situation in your life you struggled to get out of. This verse could also be a sign that the narrator has unfixed abandonment issues, and with that, they must learn how to unlearn it first, but for now, they chose not to.

“I don't need to take your heart

You keep yours, I'll keep mine”

This part is where the narrator starts to fully embrace the possibility that they cannot change nor fix somebody, that they deserved more than what they thought.  This does not mean the other person is toxic nor is bad for the narrator, but this could mean that the situation they are in is the toxic part of their relationship. This could be incompatibility issues, communication style issues, attachment style issues, different interests and niches, different paths, or even different goals in life. This part is where they are starting to choose themselves and “keep their heart” while the other “keeps theirs.”

I, in some way or another, can attest that this realization is not an abrupt process but a slow and steady progression. This part was written after the narrator proclaimed in the first verses that they don’t mind if the other person loved them back, probably because at first, they are ready to risk everything for this person and was willing to fight despite hurting, that they tried, but their heart eventually found out that this game is not for the weak, and with that, they need to keep their heart safe before they sooner or later lose it.

“All I really know is when I'm lonely

I hate that I'm lonely

And that's why I let you in”

This part is an obvious sign that the narrator could have chosen the other person during their lowest point of their life, the point wherein there is a gray area between wanting to embrace solitude and letting this person in for companionship, no matter how incompatible they are. I, for one, had this similar trap, trying to justify this decision and making it seem like this will not ruin me in the end (it did).

“But I don't wanna break your heart

You keep yours, I'll keep mine”

The narrator could’ve possibly seen that their situation is starting to eat them up, slowly taking away their own light, and bringing them to the point that they might hurt each other the longer they stay. The verse is, honestly, empathetic and has not lost faith in love yet, presumably because the narrator did not want to hurt the other person, and they still cherish them despite the agony that they are experiencing. The narrator clearly did not see the other person as a bad one or a terrible being, which brings me back to my own experience of still seeing the light of someone’s glow, even if our circumstance hurt us both. I can resonate with the narrator with that line “I don’t wanna break your heart” because in the end, we are only trapped into phases, situations, or conditions of our lives that may not be ideal for us, and that does not give us consents to hurt and cause pain.

“I know

We know better, so

We'd both better go”

This is, I suspect, the thesis of the entire song, that the narrator wants to let them go, to “lose” them. However, it is somewhat paradoxical to think that the narrator wanted to “lose” the other person, of losing the game of love, because in the first verses, they don’t want to keep the other person’s heart in order not to hurt them. It’s as if they had taken claim of it even if they never owned it at all. It’s the same with the other person, they did not own the narrator’s heart in the first place because it is clear in this part that both of them are struggling to keep each other despite how resilient one of them was, both of them are losing the game. It is obvious that the narrator’s experience could be a constant tug of war between staying and leaving, of losing them and keeping them. This is not easy and might be very difficult because in psychology, it is possible to feel two types of emotion at the same time (go watch Inside Out), and the narrator was having this experience. What’s interesting is that, the narrator is not naïve and was fully aware of the situation, it’s just that she struggles to decide because, after all, they don’t mind loving the other person despite the hurt.

“I don't need a reason

To keep on dreamin'

That we don't lose, yeah, what's the use?

I don't need a reason

To keep on dreamin', oh

That we can win at anything at all”

The chorus affirms the earlier verse of “we’d both better go”. It is clear to me now that the narrator is not “winning” the game of love, and has no plans of dreaming one, because their current situation is a definition of losing it. They are losing hope, losing the energy, of effort, of faith, that their situation could be fixed or saved. They want to stop “dreaming” that they will win, that they will eventually get better no matter how awful they were in. I think the narrator’s feelings were valid since I don’t think (I mean, same lmao) this is easy, too, no matter how obvious of a bad situation I’m in, for one ingredient of loving someone is trying to gamble for the best, to see if it could be mend, or to hope that in the end, the situation will only get better.

“And I know

Whatever this is ain't love

So I'm goin'

I'm gonna let you go, let you go”

The narrator affirms that their situation with this person is not healthy, that this is not what love is, because after all, love is kind and safe, and it should not hurt (I can attest that it does hurt sometimes but it doesn’t hurt all the time, to the point of losing your mind and delaying your own personal growth, right?). The narrator explicitly stated in this verse that the situation there were in is not what they think what love is, and so, they are starting to let go. It could also possibly mean that they have moved on even while they are still in the relationship, it’s just that now is the right time to set them free. Love, in all of its millions of definitions, all points out to bliss and harmony, of peace and happiness, and the narrator proclaimed that what they were in is not one of which. This is a painful realization, I believe, because to deny one’s experience is an erasure of what you once felt, to invalidate those and to try to realign perspectives. Hence, I find this verse the most painful one because it is a realization you cannot deny, a feeling you cannot seem to shrug off, so you’re finally letting go.

The song “Lose” by NIKI is starting to grow on me, more like a runner-up to my favorite (and fan-favorite, as well) “Backburner”, since it tackles feelings of grief, of how difficult it is at first, and of how going through it is not in the books (you must experience it yourself to learn from it, kids!). This song is, for me, what grieving from an uncertain situation, feels like, may it not be of a particular person, but of anything dear to me. “Lose” by NIKI also tackles the earlier stages of being hopeful, of risking, of trying, that a certain situation will get better, and slowly grasping the fact that this isn’t worth taking the risk anymore, and that you become hopeless and feeling guilty. Lastly, “Lose” by NIKI talked about losing the game of love, yet for me, it won in capturing my heart and giving me novel yet familiar perspectives of life, of people, of experiences, of love.