Make the Most of Today: “Like I’m Gonna Lose You”

Meghan Trainor is a rarity in the world of pop music. An accomplished singer, songwriter and music publisher by the time she was barely out of her teens, the 22 year-old star records punchy, throwback-style tracks that sound like they were plucked from The Top 100 songs of the 1950s. Yet at the same time, her lyrics convey a maturity and depth of emotion that belie both her tender age and her upbeat style.

Trainor’s “Like I’m Gonna Lose You” (co-written with Justin Weave and Caitlyn Smith) is a song about the impermanence of life. It begins with Trainor describing a dream, that, at least in substance, is familiar to each of us — a romantic interlude that ends in sudden, inexplicable heartbreak when her beloved disappears.

She sings:

“I woke up in tears

With you by my side

A breath of relief

And I realized

No, we’re not promised tomorrow”

The lyrics and melody are simple, but the message is profound — tomorrow is an illusion that may never come to pass. 

And so Trainor promises in the song what we should all promise ourselves and those we love.

“So I’m gonna love you

Like I’m gonna lose you.

I’m gonna hold you

Like I’m saying goodbye.

Wherever we’re standing

I won’t take you for granted

’cause we’ll never know

When we’ll run out of time.”

Credit: video screen shot

Trainor is joined in the song by Grammy Award winner John Legend, whose gravelly vocals add a sense of urgency and tenderness to the underlying message:

“In the blink of an eye

Just a whisper of smoke

You could lose everything,

The truth is you never know

So I’ll kiss you longer baby

Any chance that I get

I’ll make the most of the minutes and love with no regrets”

It’s simple and straightforward song. Yet the lyrics speak eloquently to the pain of losing a loved one with whom we have not shared the depth of our love — the tragedy of loss compounded by regret for words left unsaid.

It’s a wonderful reminder, I think, to hold the people we love a little longer: to tell them we cherish them every day, and to give them what each of us wants most — unconditional love.

Watch Trainor and Legend perform the song in the video below.