‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims - Lyrics & Meaning

Although it exploded into one of the biggest songs of 2024, Teddy Swims actually dropped ‘Lose Control’ back in June 2023 as the lead single from his debut album, I've Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 1), which was released a few months later.

Prior to the arrival of his first project, the Georgia singer-songwriter had established himself as a genre-blender with a penchant for country, collaborating with Thomas Rhett and Ingrid Andress and covering fan-favourites such as Chris Stapleton's ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ and Shania Twain's ‘You're Still the One’.

‘Lose Control’ captures Swims’ ability to seamlessly fuse different styles, with the simmering track incorporating jazz and Motown elements, while still being grounded in pop and country.

In March 2024, ‘Lose Control‘ surged to the pinnacle of the Billboard Hot 100, marking Teddy Swims’ first No. 1, and laying the foundation for follow-up hits, ‘The Door’ and ’Bad Dreams’.

‘Lose Control’ opens sparsely with some eye-catching staccato keys, with Teddy Swims’ charismatic, raspy vocals entering the fray and stealing the spotlight for most of the track. As the songs builds, we get the introduction of dramatic strings and a more emphatic drum pattern - but nonetheless, Swims’ sinuous, Stapleton-esque delivery remains front-and-centre throughout this intricate, heartfelt offering. ‘Lose Control’ has been deftly constructed from an eclectic mix of building blocks stemming from jazz, Motown, country, pop, R&B, soul and more.

“Something's got a hold of me lately
No, I don’t know myself anymore
Feels like the walls are all closin' in
And the devil's knockin’ at my door, woah
Out of my mind, how many times did I tell you
I'm no good at bein' alone?
Yeah, it's taken a toll on me, tryin' my best to keep
From tearin' the skin off my bones, don't you know”

As Teddy Swims has underlined in various interviews, ‘Lose Control’ finds the bearded crooner likening a toxic relationship to the feeling of being hooked on drugs. In the opening verse, he viscerally portrays how he feels a sense of impending doom and anxiety when his lover is not with him, mirroring the feeling of a junkie needing a hit.

Through the powerful lines “Yeah, it's taken a toll on me, tryin' my best to keep / From tearin' the skin off my bones, don't you know” the protagonist underlines how uncomfortable and restless he feels without his partner by his side. The implication throughout is that both partners are deeply codependent on one another.

“I lose control
When you're not next to me
I’m fallin’ apart right in front of you, can't you see?
I lose control
When you’re not next to me, mhm
Yeah, you're breakin' my heart, baby
You make a mess of me”

The narrator doubles down on the message behind the first verse, as he stresses how he completely loses any sense of control, stability and peace of mind when his lover leaves. This again touches on the theme of substance abuse, as the protagonist describes his longing in a similar way to how an addict's world might be coloured and distorted by their yearning for their next rush of euphoria.

“Problematic
The problem is I want your body like a fiend, like a bad habit
Bad habits hard to break when I'm with you
Yeah, I know I can do it on my own
But I want that real full-moon black magic and it takes two
Problematic
The problem is when I’m with you I'm an addict
And I need some relief, my skin in your teeth
Can't see the forest through the trees
Got me down on my knees, darlin', please, oh”

The use of the word ‘fiend’ here adds to the addiction-based imagery, with the term often used to describe junkies. Through the “full-moon black magic line”, the narrator depicts their love as having a mystical quality, such is the intensity of the highs they experience together, but stresses that this carries dark, dangerous undertones.

In a 2024 interview, Teddy Swims explained to Billboard how ‘Lose Control‘ came about, “When we recorded it, when we first wrote it, I felt like, ‘Oh, this is going to change my life’. I just had that feeling, you know? It's one of the first times I've ever had that feeling of, ‘Oh, this is going to change my life’. I just know it is. I guess it makes the pain I went through super necessary. I'm super grateful for that now, that this person broke my heart, shattered it, and I think it's so great to know that the pain is necessary because it got me to this place. Pain is paying the bills, still”.

Swims expanded, “I'm trying to stop putting myself in positions to get hurt to pay the bills, because you don't always have to do that! But I'm thankful that this one is. You know, they say the best type of revenge is success, so there you have it”.

When delving into the inspiration behind ‘Lose Control’, Teddy Swims reflected, “I felt like we got very codependent, and to talk about this person I always make sure to say we're both better off [now], we're doing well, and there's no bad blood about any of it”.

He mused, “When you're with somebody and you're in a situation like that, I felt like we were kind of codependent on our lifestyle. We were living together and it was hard for us to break away from that lifestyle...there was no way out. Sometimes you love somebody so much, but you just don't belong together, and as cliche as it is, if you love something, you really gotta let it go. We both are better off without each other, and that was the hardest thing about that relationship, you know, continuing to keep diminished returns on that kind of love, on the oxytocin and the dopamine rushes of the highs we had together. I feel like that just became our lifestyle together, and our lifestyle became something that can't last forever. You can't have that and this together, you become enabling to each other, and that's kind of what we were doing there. I feel very, very grateful now to see both of us succeeding in our own ways, and being better not together, and that's a rough reality, but it's true and it's beautiful that way”.

In a discussion with the Associated Press, Swims added detail to the story, “Our lives were very intertwined, and so it’s quite nuts to have this come out at the same time this is all happening, and it’s all even more real to me now than it was when I was writing it, which is quite insane. We weren’t great together...toxic shit, substance abuse and alcohol. So, it’s a lot of my journey through that, and my journey to also recover [from] how I treated myself and [how I] felt like I was unlovable”.

What chatting to Variety, Teddy Swims touched on the vibrant concoction of genres that went into ‘Lost Control’, “You don't hear a lot of songs like 'Lose Control' anymore. It's got roots in country, rock, Motown, and R&B - and it was made to be sung live”.

“Something's got a hold of me lately
No, I don’t know myself anymore
Feels like the walls are all closin' in
And the devil's knockin’ at my door, woah
Out of my mind, how many times did I tell you
I'm no good at bein' alone?
Yeah, it's taken a toll on me, tryin' my best to keep
From tearin' the skin off my bones, don't you know

-

I lose control
When you're not next to me
I’m fallin’ apart right in front of you, can't you see?
I lose control
When you’re not next to me, mhm
Yeah, you're breakin' my heart, baby
You make a mess of me

-

Problematic
The problem is I want your body like a fiend, like a bad habit
Bad habits hard to break when I'm with you
Yeah, I know I can do it on my own
But I want that real full-moon black magic and it takes two
Problematic
The problem is when I’m with you I'm an addict
And I need some relief, my skin in your teeth
Can't see the forest through the trees
Got me down on my knees, darlin', please, oh

-

I lose control
When you're not next to me
I'm fallin' apart right in front of you, can't you see?
I lose control
When you're not next to me (Mm-hmm)
Yeah, you're breakin' my heart, baby
You make a mess of me, yeah

-

I lose control
When you're not here with me, mm
I'm fallin' apart right in front of you, can't you see?
I lose control
When you're not here with me, mhm
Yeah, you're breakin' my heart, baby
You make a mess of me”

For more on Teddy Swims, see below: