I wrote “Better Than That” as a response to a difficult time I was experiencing in one of my relationships. It was a relationship I thought I knew so well, but suddenly and without warning, that relationship was thrown into chaos. I could always depend on the strength of this relationship to help guide me through things and when I wrote the song during the summer of 2018, at that time, many things in my life were scattered, and I didn’t have the stability or comfort from this relationship that I was used to. It was like the rug was pulled out from under my feet and in addressing this relationship, I came up with the title thinking to myself, “I thought I knew us better than that”. I was left thinking to myself, “Did I rely too much on this relationship? How did I let myself get so attached and not even realize it?” It’s like I needed to find the cause and effect to why things had changed so drastically.
However, dealing with this rough patch in this relationship actually made things stronger and better between us. There was a lesson there that I had to learn, when shit breaks and it heals, it heals stronger than it was before. It’s hard to see that when you’re going through it, but once I came out the other side, I looked back and saw why this particular relationship had to fall apart in order to get put back together, and really the lesson or the moral of the story to the song is, no matter how well you THINK you know something or someone, things can always change, and it’s up to us how we respond to that change.
Warm regards to you,
CEEM