Adele's To Be Loved Lyrics Cut So Deep She’s Sworn She’ll Never Sing It Live

Adele’s fourth studio album 30 is already a hit, becoming the US’ biggest selling album of the year, and skyrocketing to number one on the UK charts just three days after it was released (Nov.19). As the Grammy-winner has openly shared, the emotionally charged tracklist of songs is about “divorce babe, divorce” and the lyrics to the penultimate single on the album To Be Loved are particularly revealing (and will likely make you weep).

Much like the album’s first single Easy On Me, as well as fan favourites I Drink Wine, Hold On and Little Love, To Be Loved is another deeply honest, autobiographical account of Adele’s divorce from Simon Konecki in 2019, however, so heart-wrenching are the lyrics that Adele has vowed never to sing this song live.

As Bustle reported earlier this week, Adele explained her struggle with revisiting the song to podcast host Tamara Dhia on the Spout Podcast, stating: “I’ve only really sung it a few times and definitely can’t even really listen to it without getting emotional,” she said. “So, I will not be performing that one live... No, never.”

To Be Loved is a powerful and gut-wrenching piano ballad that retells Adele’s relationship with Konecki from the beginning, as Nylon writes, the song is Adele “owning up to all the ways she was ill-prepared when embarking on the relationship in the first place.” In To Be Loved Adele belts out to listeners to “Let it be known, let it be known that I tried” marking the painful realisation that her marriage had come to an end. For Pitchfork, both Adele’s vulnerability and vocal prowess make the songs a “masterpiece.”

Away from her recent grand-scale live performances, Adele performed a stunning stripped-back version of To Be Loved on Instagram Live (Nov. 18), reducing many fans to tears. As one person wrote in the comments “Great, now I’m crying…I’m not prepared for this album but I’ve blocked off the entire wknd to learn all the lyrics.”

If you plan on doing the same, here’s the full To Be Loved lyrics below:

Verse 1

I built a house for a love to grow

I was so young that it was hard to know

I'm as lost now as I was back then

Always make a mess of everything

It's about time that I face myself

All I do is bleed into someone else

Painting walls with all my secret tears

Filling rooms with all my hopes and fears

Pre-Chorus

But oh my, oh my

I'll never learn if I never leap

I'll always yearn if I never speak

Chorus

To be loved and love at the highest count

Means to lose all the things I can't live without

Let it be known that I will choose to lose

It's a sacrifice, but I can't live a lie

Let it be known, let it be known that I tried

Verse 2

I'm so afraid, but I'm open wide

I'll be the one to catch myself this time

Tryna learn to lean into it all

Ain't it funny how the mighty fall?

Looking back, I don't regret a thing

Yeah, I took some bad turns that I am owning

I'll stand still and let the storm pass by

Keep my heart safe till the time feels right