She Will Be Loved
by Maroon 5
How to study this song
Learning “She Will Be Loved” means 64 entries at A1+ — 21 English words, 7 adjectives and 36 verb forms, every one taken from what the song actually says. Begin with beauty, queen and trouble: get those and most of the lines stop being guesswork. This one leans on its verbs: 36 distinct forms against 7 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| EN | ES | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| beauty | belleza | bellezza | beauté | beleza | schoonheid | Schönheit |
Adjectives
| EN | ES | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| broken | roto | spezzato, rotto | brisé | partido | gebroken | gebrochen |
Verb forms
| EN | ES | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| had | tenía | aveva | elle avait | tinha | zij had | sie hatte |
What this song teaches you
Level · A1+
- Vocabulary words
- 21
- Adjectives
- 7
- Word combos
- 14
- Expressions
- 13
- Verb forms
- 36
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
«She Will Be Loved» is the ballad that turned Maroon 5 from a promising new band into one of the best-known pop groups of the 2000s. It appears on «Songs About Jane», the group’s first album under the name Maroon 5, which Octone Records released on 25 June 2002, and it came out as the third single from that album on 21 June 2004, after «Harder to Breathe» and «This Love». The song is credited to the singer Adam Levine and the guitarist James Valentine, and it was produced by Matt Wallace. The single was issued by Octone together with J Records, and the album version lasts a little over four minutes.
The success did not arrive overnight. According to Wikipedia, the members had already released an album in the 1990s under another name, Kara’s Flowers, with little response. As Maroon 5 the line-up was Levine on vocals and guitar, Valentine on guitar, Jesse Carmichael on keyboards, Mickey Madden on bass and Ryan Dusick on drums. The same source says that «Songs About Jane» was recorded in Los Angeles between late 2001 and January 2002, mainly at Rumbo Recorders. Its biggest singles came out in 2004, two years after the album itself, and that is when the band reached a mass audience on both sides of the Atlantic.
The album takes its title from Jane Herman, a former girlfriend of Levine who inspired many of its lyrics. This song, however, is not about her. According to Songfacts, Levine has explained that it was inspired by a young woman and a man he knew whose relationship was difficult: she was going through a bad period, and he did his best to support her and look after her. Songfacts also reports that Levine described the writing as very fast, saying the song came together in about an hour.
The lyrics tell that story first from the outside and then from the inside. The opening verse introduces a very young woman who once won a beauty contest and who struggles with problems she cannot solve, and a man who is always ready to help her, although her heart is with somebody else. Then the singer speaks in the first person: he has travelled a long way to reach her, he would gladly wait for her day after day, even in bad weather, and he promises that a girl with a sad smile can find someone who will take care of her. Later he admits his own doubts, but he says that love is not a fairy tale and that it needs patience on both sides. In the last part he says that he knows her well, including the places where she goes to hide, and that she keeps leaving and coming back to him.