By Gabrielle Kroeger

“When You’re Gone” is the second song Shawn Mendes  (“It’ll Be Okay”) has released since his break up with Camila Cabello (“Bam Bam”). The two announced their split on Nov. 17, 2021, and Mendes released the song “It’ll Be Okay” on Dec. 1, 2021. The song has an extremely sad tone, and the lyrics portray how Mendes was feeling about the breakup. “When You’re Gone” is much more upbeat and seems like a happy song, despite the sad lyrics. 

Since the breakup, the tone of Mendes’ songs have changed. His recent album “Wonder” includes songs such as “Always Been You,” “Teach Me How to Love” and “24 Hours” which are all about love, and they all seem to be about his relationship with Cabello. It seems the breakup is potentially taking Mendes in a different direction for the future of his career. 

Despite being about his recent breakup, “When You’re Gone” is a very upbeat and catchy song. The music video shows Mendes performing and recording the song, seeming happy. The song is currently ranked at number two on the iTunes Top 100 Pop Songs, right after Harry Styles’ (“Watermelon Sugar”) “As It Was.” 

In this song, Mendes says, “I need to learn how to cope without you.” In an instagram post, Mendes said that while going through this breakup, it was hard for him to realize he was now alone. “When You’re Gone” was inspired by these feelings he had while he was trying to work through not having someone to help him get through tough times. 

The song does a great job of balancing the sadness of going through a breakup, while not being a typical sad song. Fans are already talking about how exciting it will be to see Mendes perform this song on his upcoming “Wonder” tour. Mendes has said in interviews that he will be playing the song on tour and he always wants to be transparent with his fans about what is going on in his life. 

Mendes wrote “When You’re Gone” a month after his and Cabello’s breakup, so the lyrics are portraying how he felt during that time. The lyrics “It’s getting real, I’m missing you deeply/so I’m just tryna hold on” show his struggle with moving on. This song will likely resonate with anyone going through a similar situation, but the upbeat tone will take away from the sadness.

The lyrics of “When You’re Gone” are beautifully written and do a great job of showing the struggles of going through a break up. The tone Mendes chose for the song is exactly what his fans needed after “It’ll Be Okay,” which was still a great song, but it was very sad. By having sad lyrics with an upbeat tone, Mendes is giving his fans a fun song to listen to. 

Mendes puts everything he has into his songs and you can see the joy on his face when he is performing. The music video to “When You’re Gone” shows how happy he is, despite singing about his breakup. The video also shows the crowd reacting positively to hearing “When You’re Gone” for the first time. 

Image from Shawn Mendes via YouTube