The existence of Gomez’s title track, “Rare,” was first confirmed on August 16, 2018, when she went on an Instagram live to share that her “favorite song [off her new album is the title track].”
The song is a self-empowerment anthem about independence and self-love.
A demo now speculated to be sung by co-writer Madison Love (singer-songwriter Emily Warren was intially credited) leaked in full back in late 2018, causing a frenzy on Twitter.
The song’s lyrics were then later teased in an interview with ELLE on September 4, 2018.
Lyrics of Rare
Baby (baby)
You've been so distant from me lately (lately)
And lately (and lately)
Don't even want to call you baby (baby)
Saw us getting older (older)
Burning toast in the toaster
My ambitions were too high (high)
Waiting up for you upstairs (upstairs)
Why you act like I'm not there?
Baby, right now it feels like
It feels like you don't care
Oh, why don't you recognize I'm so rare?
Always there
You don't do the same for me
That's not fair
I don't have it all
I'm not claiming to
But I know that I'm special (special)
Yeah
And I'll bet there's somebody else out there
To tell me I'm rare
To make me feel rare
Baby (baby)
Don't make me count up all the reasons
To stay with you
No reason (no reason)
Why you and I are not succeeding
Ah-ah (mmm, ah, ah)
Saw us getting older (older)
Burning toast in the toaster (ah-huh)
My ambitions were too high (too high)
Waiting up for you upstairs (upstairs)
Why you act like I'm not there? (Ah-huh)
Baby, right now it feels like
(What?)
It feels like you don't care
Oh, why don't you recognize I'm so rare? (I'm so rare)
Always there
You don't do the same for me
That's not fair
I don't have it all
I'm not claiming to
But I know that I'm special (special)
Yeah
And I'll bet there's somebody else out there
To tell me I'm rare
To make me feel rare (yeah, yeah)
I'm not gonna beg for you
I'm not gonna let you make me cry (ah, nah, nah, make me cry)
Not getting enough from you (no-oh)
Didn't you know I'm hard to find? (Hard to find)
Saw us getting older
Burning toast in the toaster
My ambitions were too high (too high)
Waiting up for you upstairs
Why you act like I'm not there?
Baby, right now it feels like
It feels like you don't care (you don't care)
Why don't you recognize I'm so rare? (So rare)
I'm always there
You don't do the same for me
That's (that's)
Not (not)
Fair
I don't have it all (I don't have it all)
I'm not claiming to (I'm not claiming to)
I know that I'm special (special)
Yeah
And I'll bet there's somebody else out there
To tell me I'm rare
To make me feel rare
(Ooh, yeah)
So rare
(Rare)