Guide
To Love Somebody Review: Holly Humberstone has just released “To Love Somebody,” a track that sets itself apart from the bedroom pop vulnerability of her earlier work. This latest single reveals a more mature sound, built around the complicated emotions of watching someone you care about go through heartbreak. What could have been another melancholic breakup song instead becomes something more interesting: a meditation on how loving someone always carries the risk of hurting them, and how that risk might actually be worth taking. The production feels bigger and bolder than anything she’s done before, though it still carries that intimate quality that made people fall in love with her music in the first place.
Song Analysis (To Love Somebody Review)
It is quietly radical for Holly Humberstone to name her latest single after one of pop music’s most recognizable titles and then deliver something entirely original. “To Love Somebody” stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it. The track was born from watching a close friend navigate brutal heartbreak, and Humberstone transforms that secondhand grief into something strangely comforting.
Working again with producer Rob Milton, who has been her creative partner for years, she crafts a song that sits in the tension between feeling everything and letting go. The thesis is simple but devastating: to love somebody is to hurt somebody, and losing somebody means at least you got to love somebody in the first place.
The production here feels like a natural evolution for Humberstone, balancing her bedroom pop roots with something bigger and more immediate. Milton builds the track on a foundation of euphoric synths and an uptempo beat that push against darker electronic textures and delicate acoustic guitar work. The genre sits comfortably in the alt pop and indie pop space, drawing easy comparisons to artists like Gracie Abrams and Lorde, though there’s a gothic sensibility running underneath that sets it apart.
The mix allows her vocals to float at the center of everything, breathy yet emotionally present, carrying this newfound lightness that marks a shift from her earlier work. The chorus is massive and memorable, the kind of melody you catch yourself humming without realizing it, built for singing along at sold out shows.
The overall mood of “To Love Somebody” is harder to pin down than you might expect from its subject matter. This is a song about loss and pain that somehow feels optimistic, like watching the sun break through clouds during a funeral. Humberstone explores love as something simultaneously beautiful and inherently painful, and this track captures that contradiction perfectly. There’s a line about being the first to die in the movie of your life while critics call it trash, and it cuts with dark humor that keeps the whole thing from tipping into melodrama.
The music video leans into Edward Scissorhands and Nosferatu imagery, which tells you everything about where her head is at right now. She’s making gothic fairytale pop that holds emotion at arm’s length while letting it quietly swell, and I genuinely think this could be the track that pushes her into a bigger spotlight.
Holly Humberstone – To Love Somebody Lyrics (To Love Somebody Review)
Intro
I-I, I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I
I-I, I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I
Verse 1
So you crashed into the wall
You’re cleaning up the broken glass
Thinking, “What the hell was that?” Yeah
In the movie of your life
You’re the first to die
And the critics called it trash (Too bad)
Pre-Chorus
They tell you that you feel too much
Euphoria right down to the crush
It all breaks down, it always does
It all works out, it always does
And the shit they say in the songs you love
The greatest hits and the deepest cuts
It all breaks down, it always does
It all works out, it always does
Chorus
To love somebody
To hurt somebody
To lose somebody
Is to know you’re only human, honey
To love somebody
To hurt somebody
To lose somebody
Well, at least you got to love somebody
Post-Chorus
I-I, I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I
Well, at least you got to love somebody
Verse 2
You took a right hook to the jaw
So you go and brush your teeth
A little powder on your cheeks
And you feel a little better
And this blue and green ball
Keeps spinning to the beat
You gotta try and move your feet
Gotta be boxing clever
Pre-Chorus
They tell you that you feel too much
You bet it all on a summer crush
It all breaks down, it always does
It all works out, it always does
And you wear his T-shirt, you hate his guts
You read the handbook, you take the drugs
You said, “From here on out, it’s us”
It always was, it always was
Chorus
To love somebody
To hurt somebody
To lose somebody
Is to know you’re only human, honey
To love somebody
To hurt somebody
To lose somebody
Well, at least you got to love somebody
Post-Chorus
I-I, I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I
At least you got to love somebody
I-I, I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I
Pre-Chorus
They tell you that you feel too much (Na-na, na-na-na, na-na, na-na-na)
Euphoria right down to the crush (Na-na, na-na-na, na-na, na-na-na)
It all breaks down, it always does
It all works out, it always does
And the shit they say in the songs you love (Na-na, na-na-na, na-na, na-na-na)
The greatest hits and the deepest cuts (Na-na, na-na-na, na-na, na-na-na)
It all breaks down, it always does
It all works out, it always does
Chorus
To love somebody (To love you)
To hurt somebody (To hurt you)
To lose somebody (To lose you)
Is to know you’re only human, honey (It’s only human)
To love somebody (To love you)
To hurt somebody (To hurt you)
To lose somebody (To lose you)
Well, at least you got to love somebody
Outro
I-I, I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I (To love you, to hurt you, to lose you)
Well, at least you got to love somebody (It’s only human, honey)
I-I, I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I (To love you, to hurt you, to lose you)
At least you got to love somebody
I-I, I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I (To love you, to hurt you, to lose you)
I-I, I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I
Meaning (My Opinion) (To Love Somebody Review)
At its core, the song explores the messy, unavoidable experience of being human. It treats love not as something soft or idealized, but as something that comes bundled with pain, confusion, and loss. The lyrics lean into the idea that feeling deeply, whether it’s joy, heartbreak, or embarrassment is what makes a person alive in the first place. Instead of shying away from those emotions or trying to numb them, the song almost celebrates them. It’s as if the narrator is saying, “Yeah, it hurts, but that’s the point.” There’s a quiet resilience in that, a refusal to flatten life into something safer and duller.
What also stands out is how the song treats growth. You don’t learn to be human by winning; you learn by crashing into walls, getting bruised, and figuring out what to do next. The song moves through scenes that feel like real life, the kind of daily humiliations, heartbreaks, and small victories that never make it into blockbusters but define us the most. By the time it reaches the chorus, it lands on its main truth: to love is worth it, even if it doesn’t last, even if it ends badly. There’s no bitterness in that conclusion, just a bittersweet acceptance that loving somebody, even for a short time, was still a privilege.
Listen To “To Love Somebody” By Holly Humberstone (To Love Somebody Review)
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