Image Cred: Interscope Records

“You Said You Were Sorry” is a short, steady track from their new album I Said I Love You First, and it’s one of those songs that feels deceptively simple at first: quiet vocals, a little coastal imagery, some soft regret.

But listen a little closer, and it’s really about something bigger—what it means to forgive someone who never actually asked to be forgiven, and what happens when you make peace with the past on your own terms.

The backstory adds even more weight to it.

According to Selena, this song came out of a real dream she had—one where an unnamed ex finally apologized. And even though that apology never happened in waking life, just dreaming it gave her the sense of closure she needed. That idea alone is interesting, but it gets even more layered when you zoom out and look at where she is now: in a happy, committed relationship with benny blanco (who also co-wrote and produced the song), fully into this era of honesty and self-reflection.

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And sure, people online are doing what they do—trying to figure out if the song is about Justin Bieber or Zayn or whoever else—but to me, the bigger story here isn’t who it’s about. It’s what it’s doing.

So that’s where I’m coming in. I’ve spent the last learning, teaching and writing about poetry, and to me, this song reads like a quiet little elegy. Not for a person, but for a version of yourself that used to wait around for someone else’s words to set you free.

It’s also just a great excuse to dust off a few of my favorite poems and see how they line up. Because even though this song lives in the world of pop, it’s speaking a language that goes way back—through poems about grief, memory, and healing that aren’t always neat or literal but still hit hard.

You Said You Were Sorry Lyrics and Meaning — at a glance

  • It’s based on a real dream Selena had, where an ex finally gave her the apology she never got in real life—but somehow, that dream still gave her peace.
  • It’s not about “just one person.” Even though fans are pointing fingers (looking at you, Justin), Selena’s said a mix of past relationships, friendships, and inner changes shapes the album.
  • It’s a song about closure you don’t need permission for. It’s quiet, it’s forgiving, and it’s about making peace without needing the last word—and I think that’s what makes it land.

Let’s Dive Into The Meaning

“PCH, driving Malibu, baby”

The song starts off with a peaceful image: Selena driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

This sets the tone right away. It feels calm, sunny, and open. To me, that shows her state of mind. She’s not trapped in old feelings anymore. She’s in a new space—both in life and in love.

She says, “He fills me up, yeah, he never gets lazy,” which tells me this new partner actually gives her what she needs. He shows up. He’s consistent. In my opinion, she’s saying, “This is what real love looks like. This is what I didn’t get before.”

Her line, “I wouldn’t leave him even if you paid me,” brings in the past. She’s talking to someone who hurt her before. This new love is so different from what she had that she wouldn’t give it up for anything. In Louise Bogan’s poem “Night,” there’s a line that says, “The years are shadows.” It reminds me of how Selena has stepped out of those shadows. She’s not living in the past anymore—she’s somewhere brighter.

“Now I get why people like it”

This line from the second verse feels honest and new. She’s saying she didn’t really know what love felt like until now. That tells me something important—whatever she had before might’ve been intense, but it wasn’t healthy. This new relationship feels simple, soft, and safe. And she finally understands why people want that kind of love.

When she says, “You should try it,” it feels like she’s speaking directly to her ex. She’s not mad. She’s not begging. She’s just saying, “What we had wasn’t love like this.” That shows how far she’s come. It’s not just about falling in love again—it’s about realizing what love is supposed to be.

This moment reminds me of Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Going.” He writes, “You, being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness.” He’s talking about someone who faded out of his life and didn’t give him answers. Like Hardy, Selena is looking back at someone who disappeared emotionally. But instead of holding onto that pain, she’s found something better—and she’s letting the past stay in the past.

“Don’t think about you / Happy without you”

This pre-chorus is short, but it says a lot. Selena doesn’t think about her ex anymore. She’s not sad. She’s happy without him. And most of all, she says she’s more happy now than she ever was with him. That says everything about her growth.

These lines feel like a turning point in the song. She’s not just surviving—she’s thriving. She’s not haunted by what happened. She’s proud of where she is now. That’s a really important emotional shift. She’s taking her power back.

In Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s poem “Song,” there’s a line where she says, “Even now, my eyes still see the goat running.” That poem is about a memory that won’t leave. But in Selena’s case, it’s the opposite. She’s not stuck in the memory. She’s free of it. She remembers, but it doesn’t hurt her anymore.

“You said you were sorry”

Now we get to the chorus, where Selena says she had a dream. In that dream, her ex finally apologized. He said sorry for everything. They both cried. They both forgave. But none of it was real. It was just a dream. And still—that was enough for her.

I think this part is what makes the whole song hit so hard. She didn’t get an apology in real life. She had to imagine it. But the feelings were still real. That dream gave her what she needed to finally let go. And that tells us something really important: healing doesn’t always come from the other person. Sometimes, we give it to ourselves.

This reminds me of another part of “The Going” by Hardy. He says, “What have you now found to say of our past— / Scanned across the dark space wherein I have no part?” He’s talking to someone who left without explaining why. Selena is doing something similar—reaching out to someone who didn’t give her closure. But instead of staying stuck, she makes her own peace. Even if it’s only in a dream.

“That was enough for me”

This is the line that gets repeated over and over at the end. And to me, it’s the most powerful part of the song. Selena says it softly, but clearly. She didn’t get the closure she wanted in real life. But the dream was enough. That’s what healing can look like.

Sometimes we think we need someone to say sorry in person. But that doesn’t always happen. People move on. Or they don’t change. But that doesn’t mean we have to stay stuck. This line shows that Selena found a way to feel whole—without needing anything from him.

Brigit Pegeen Kelly ends “Song” by saying, “I carried it with me / Until something in me broke.” That moment of breaking can also be a moment of release. Just like Selena, Kelly shows us what it means to carry pain for a long time—and then let it go.

Connecting All The Dots

So here’s what makes this song stick: it’s not about the person who hurt her. Not really. It’s about the space that person left behind—and what you do with that. In interviews, Selena’s been really open about where this song came from: a dream. She woke up and told Benny about it right away, and it turned into this track, where the imagined apology from an ex finally arrives.

But what makes it work is that she knows it’s just a dream—“that’s all it was”—and she’s not asking for it to be more. That’s where the emotional weight of the song comes in. It’s not some empowerment anthem or “gotcha” breakup moment. It’s softer than that. And in a way, that softness feels braver.

It reminded me right away of Thomas Hardy’s “The Going,” which is basically one long, stunned conversation with someone who disappeared on him emotionally and physically. He says, “Why did you give no hint that night?”—and it’s that same feeling of confusion and unfinished business. Selena doesn’t ask the question out loud like Hardy does, but it’s underneath everything in this song. What’s different is that she doesn’t wait around for the answer. The dream gives her what real life never did, and instead of obsessing over whether it’s “real,” she makes a decision.

She lets it count.

That’s something Hardy never really gets to do. He’s still turning it over years later. Selena wakes up and moves on.

The other poems I kept thinking about were Louise Bogan’s “Night” and Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s “Song.” Bogan has this line about how “the years are shadows,” and it fits perfectly with how Selena sings about her past here—it’s not erased, it’s just dimmed. It’s something she’s walked through. And Kelly, in “Song,” writes about carrying a painful memory that never really leaves.

She says, “Even now, my eyes still see the goat running.” That image lives in the back of your mind, just like an old love does. Selena’s dream apology doesn’t erase what happened, but it shifts how she holds it. That tracks with what she and Benny said when they were promoting the album—how this song wasn’t about one specific person but about emotional weight from multiple chapters of their lives. Whether it’s a past partner or a friendship that faded out, the point is the same: sometimes closure doesn’t come from the outside. Sometimes you write the ending yourself, even if it’s only in your sleep.

The post Selena Gomez & benny blanco You Said You Were Sorry Lyrics and Meaning, and What It Tells Us About Inner Peace appeared first on Magnetic Magazine.