Amerie talked with Honey Magazine about her new album among other things;
So I want to talk about the album, In Love & War. What is it all about?
It’s pretty much about the ups and downs in a relationship. Not so much the ups, but it’s more about the downs of the relationship or coming to the other side after going through trials and tribulations. It’s definitely a less idealized viewpoint of relationships — just the things that we go through to grow as individuals, being individuals and being in a relationship and what that means.
Is it ridden with personal experiences or is it just inspiration?
It’s pretty personal. I mean [the album is about] things that I’ve gone through, my history of past relationships. There’s also stories from lots of my friends and their issues in their relationships. I wanted each song to have a facet of a relationship. It’s not like the entire album is one relationship. It could be, but it also could be different relationships. I wanted each song to tell a specific story. So it was really important to make sure I kept that in mind when I was writing, so I didn’t go off and become too varied and lose what the story was.
Does it stem from a particular situation? Did something happen right before you went back into the studio and it was something you needed to express?
It was more reflecting on everything I’ve been through in terms of relationships in the past. Things that at the time seemed so terrible, but later they’re kind of funny. I think we’ve all been there.
It sounds like it was important to get it out, because normally albums like this are a lot more idealized.
Yeah, and there are a lot of songs on here too that talk about “I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave.” And those are there too, like “Why are you…?” is very much that type of record as far as leaving. It’s very specific like “I want to call but my pride won’t let me.” You have this masochistic approach where you just keep coming back for more but you don’t really want to.
So when it comes to relationships, have you changed who you are in relationships or what you look for in a guy? What have you learned from what you’ve been reflecting on?
I think in general I’ve always pretty much had a good handle on what’s going on in a relationship. I’ve always trusted my intuition and I’ve always known that my intuition is right. Now whether I decide to go with that or not is a different story. But I always knew, and I tell women this all the time, intuition will never lead you astray. Never. We have it for a reason. But we choose to try and turn it down or try and turn it off. And that’s something that I’ve always known but it wasn’t until I got a little older that I learned to just listen to that, because I think we all hear it. Women, we always know what’s going on. Whether we choose to act on that is a different story. But I’ve just learned to just go with it. And that’s something I’ve definitely learned over time. If every woman would just go with it, we’d be so much better off. We all have a sixth sense. That’s why men think we’re so crafty sometimes but it’s like “Honey, its not that we are but we just don’t put it all on the table.” No guy can match that.
Did that change how you approach relationships?
Yes, because of something that my Dad always told me a long time ago. A guy is always going to show you his cards. Whether you choose to look at those cards for what they are or whether you just choose to act like you don’t’ see them, a man will always show you his cards. So don’t act surprised later when something happens, because you saw it already in the beginning and you chose not to heed that. And that is really true. So how did that change me? I didn’t hang around and try and figure a guy out a million different ways, like maybe this or maybe he was sick or maybe he just whatever. It’s like, it is what it is. We’ve got to start wasting time and energy on a situation when there’s nothing to figure out. And we tend to do that all the time. We’re so good at that.
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