On the 23rd September 2008, Demi Lovato released her debuting album, “Don’t Forget”. On track number 11, “Believe In Me” was played. Demi actually released this album at just the age of 16 years old! Many critics said that this album marked the transition between her “tween-sound”, from her EP “Moves Me”, into much more of a mature sound. The albums lead single, “Don’t Forget”, reached number 41 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and 76 on Canadian Hot 100.
“Believe In Me” is a Pop-rock styled song with the instrumentation given by vocals, guitar, drums and piano. This song sits in the key of C major and ranges from a vocal range of G3-D5. Demi incorporates the style of pop and rock and therefore widens her target audience but also create a new sound. The key makes it easy enough for a beginner to learn yet complex enough so the song doesn’t sound like it’s just another generic chart song.
The songs structure is quite basic yet effective with a verse, chorus, interlude, verse, chorus, bridge, breakdown, chorus, outro. Even though the structure is quite basic of a pop song, Demi incorporates many different riffs which creates variation in sounds and stops it sounding like a looping structure.
This song is about a young teenage that is finding it hard to find herself but she doesn’t want anyone else to worry so she pretends she’s ok, “it’s amazing what you can hide, just by putting on a smile”. This song also mimics her mental health at the time and how it was on a downward spiral, so this song could be claimed as a cry for help but I’d say it’s more to uplift and inspire people who felt/feel like she did, that it will be ok as long as you’ve got yourself, “now I believe in me”.
In verse 1, she’s basically saying how she’s constantly pinning herself against everyone else around her based on like beauty, talent or how far they are in life and what they’ve achieved but it’s making her loose herself and try to change herself to become like them because she views them as “better”. She moves on to say “stuck in this routine …..instead of just being weak”. This is a clear representation of her poor mental health at the time because she perceives her insecurities as weaknesses instead of it just being human nature. She’s also stating how she’s compared herself for so long, that it’s just become like a routine to her, it’s like something she has to do.
In the chorus, she’s saying how she just wants to feel beautiful and love herself the way that she loves all the people that she’s comparing herself to. When she says “’cause everyone’s perfect in unusual ways”, as much as she’s saying it to anyone who needs to hear it, she’s mostly saying it to herself because she just wants to believe in herself. “I just wanna believe in me”, is her literally saying how she feels, in the moment, she doesn’t believe in herself because she’s too busy comparing herself to others but she hopes one day that she can view herself as she views those who she aspires to be. The final “La, la, la, la” is like a little bit of harmony/melody and it kind of sounds like part of a lullaby that you’d sing to babies to sooth them so I think this is her expressing how music is like a lullaby to her because it soothes her and allows her to express her true, authentic self.
Verse 2 expresses how easy it is to hide how she’s feeling because the people around her don’t see it. This could be a direct reference to how blind-sided society is because they tend to only focus on their own problems and miss clear signs of someone desperately needing help, like Demi needed. “The mirror can lie, doesn’t show you what’s inside” is like a metaphor of saying that what you see of people on the outside isn’t always what they feel on the inside. This is also a little bit of a contradiction because Demi aspires to be all these people yet they could be the most broken people mentally and emotionally, yet she wouldn’t know and she’s aspiring to be them. “It’s amazing what you can hide, just by putting on a smile”, again, expresses how easy it is to fool others about what you’re feeling on the inside by projecting happiness on the outside.
We then move into the second chorus, but with a little more emotion because of the increased dynamics on the vocals, before moving into the bridge. The bridge is her realisation that she is enough and that everything she’s wanting/needing, she has all the capability to do so within her. “I’m quickly finding out, I’m not about to breakdown, not today” expresses how even though life is tough and that she is facing many obstacles at the minute, she won’t let it get her down. “I guess I always knew, that I had all the strength to make it through” is almost whispered so it’s like she doesn’t quite believe it but she’s using that theory of “fake it until you make it”. It’s like the bridge is her subconscious thoughts that are there but she doesn’t quite believe yet.
The we get a very large increase in dynamics for the final chorus, almost like she’s tired and angry at not being able to believe in herself and that she doesn’t want to feel this way anymore. At the very end, “you see now, now I believe in me” is said a lot quieter and soft yet louder than what it previously was in the bridge so it’s like she’s slowly starting to believe and see her worth.
For the intro, the guitar plays a slight little bend and then piano and guitar start harmonising together, up until the chorus. In the chorus’, and towards the end, the electric guitar sounds much more dominant but the little breaks between the verses and chorus’ are solely piano, also every soft bit is either piano and guitar or just piano.
When performing this song, usually played the piano but she also got very emotional whilst singing this song, and usually gave a little speech to begin. This expresses how Demi wrote this song from her heart.
In early performances, you can see how emotional Demi is because she is literally singing the song to herself. At that moment in time, Demi struggled a lot and used music as an escape and a creative way for self expression so it was very emotional because she made herself extremely vulnerable.
In more modern times, Demi gives a speech to the audience explaining her truth and, in a way, gifts the song to us as a reminder to stay strong and that we can get through it because she’s living proof of it. This performance is much less emotional but more of a softer tone, kind of like she’s talking to us and just saying “it’s going to be ok”. She also does this performance solely just singing which projects less emotion and allows us to just absorb how this song makes us feel rather than see a glimpse to her present reality.
Just a side comment, but Demi didn’t use much effects on this song which shows that this is her truth revealed through music. This song really is exactly how she was feeling at the time and that’s why this song is so vulnerable and well produced.