And the fact that she actually managed to stay married in real life and seems to be in a better place these days testifies to the importance and power of such perseverance. “Just give me a reason,” she begs, “Just a little bit’s enough/Just a second, we’re not broken, just bent/And we can learn to love again.”Ĭredit P!nk with doing something that’s pretty countercultural these days: hanging in there to keep working on something that doesn’t feel good right at this moment. She isn’t willing to throw in the towel, and she’s convinced the jagged edges in their relationship can still be smoothed.

P!nk doesn’t mention marriage, but she’s clear about sharing a bed: “Now you’ve been talking in your sleep, uh-oh/Things you never say to me, uh-oh/Tell me that you’ve had enough/Of our love, our love.”īut if there’s one thing that’s true about P!nk, it’s that she’s a fighter. Now they’re together, but things aren’t going so well anymore. “Right from the start,” P!nk sings, “You were a thief/You stole my heart.” Then she adds, “I let you see the parts of me/That weren’t all that pretty/And with every touch you fixed them.” At least at first, then, P!nk found safety and healing in this relationship. The song begins with fond recollections of how things were at the beginning. “Just Give Me a Reason” sounds like a song that easily could have been written in the midst of that hard season, as it expresses the feelings of a woman who desperately wants a troubled relationship to work even as she wonders whether it’s going to make the trip. In 2008, P!nk and her motocross-racing husband endured a separation and flirted with divorce before reconciling two years later. “Just Give Me a Reason” is about as close to that kind of a song as one Alecia Beth Moore, aka P!nk, is liable to get.

It’s something that just ain’t gonna happen. For any and all P!nk fans out there waiting for a straight-ahead upbeat, feel-good love song from the spunky singer, well, I’d like to give you permission to stop holding your breath now.