The Real Meaning Behind Jazmine Sullivan's 'Lost One'

Jazmine Sullivan's long-awaited single, "Lost One," was like a breath of fresh air for the R&B industry. After being MIA for nearly five years, Sullivan returned to her storytelling roots with "Lost One." Pitchfork praised "Lost One" as "reason enough for both Sullivan's estranged lover and the shiftless music industry to come home." High praise indeed. So, what's it all about? Let's break it down.

Luckily, we don't have to look much further than Sullivan herself when trying to decode the lyrics of "Lost One" as she went through the song line by line in a 2020 interview. When speaking to Genius, Sullivan said she was inspired to write the song when she heard the track, which sounded profoundly sad, and stood out to her among the others she sampled that day. Ultimately, Sullivan decided to write about broken love. "If you get old enough, you'll go through many breakups in your life," she said. "There's some that you realize you were the problem," she added. "And it's a big regret."

Sullivan opted to write about reckoning with the regret of leaving a lover, rather than being left by a lover. Throughout the song, Sullivan pleads with her ex to "not have too much fun" and not fall in love again, even if she admits it's a bit toxic to ask an ex not to move on. "It's a human thing to not want to feel pain," Sullivan said, "but you have to."

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