Top 10 Songs by P!nk

For more than 20 years, P!nk has been consistently pumping out music—from her 2000 debut, Can’t Take Me Home, and her first single, “There You Go,” which peaked at No. 7 on Billboard Hot 100 chart, to her most recent upcoming album, Trustfall, due out in Feb. 2023.

Writing a majority of her music catalog, including hits like “So What,” “Sober,” and the 2017 ballad “What About Us.”  Her Moulin Rouge-inspired cover of “Lady Marmalade” with Christina Aguilera, Lil Kim, and Mya kicked off a series of collaborations with everyone from Eminem, Steven Tyler, Sia, Kenny Chesney, T.I., Chris Stapleton, and more, over the past two decades.

Working with longtime collaborators like Billy Mann, and singer, songwriter, and producer Linda Perry—who penned most of her groundbreaking second album, Missundaztood, in 2001, including the No. 1 hit “Get the Party Started”—P!nk (often credited by her real name Alecia Moore) has also written songs for other artists—everyone from Cher, Celine Dion, Faith Hill, and Adam Lambert, among others.

P!nk’s still-expanding songbook has earned her three Grammy awards and dozens of other accolades along the way. 

Here’s a look at just 10 P!nk songs that she wrote from 2001 through the present.

1. “Don’t Let Me Get Me” (2001)
Written by P!nk and Dallas Austin

Though P!nk didn’t have a hand in writing her breakout Missundaztood  hit, “Get the Party Started”—written and produced by Linda Perry—she did pen a majority of the songs on her second album, including three additional chart-toppers like “Don’t Let Me Get Me.” Addressing self-awareness and self-esteem, “Don’t Let Me Get Me” is a song of empowerment for young girls and women to accept themselves as they are.

“It’s basically about feeling inadequate, and wanting to get away from yourself,” said P!nk. “It’s somewhat autobiographical, for the most part. In class, I was definitely always getting into trouble. I had 63 hours of overdue detentions when I left school that I’ll never have to serve.” She added, “To me, any truth is good, whether it hurts or not, so me looking in the mirror, standing next to what most people would call perfect girl, I have those feelings. I think every girl does.”

Never win first place, I don’t support the team
I can’t take direction,
and my socks are never clean
Teachers dated me, my parents hated me
I was always in a fight
cuz I can’t do nothin’ right

Everyday I fight a war against the mirror
I can’t take the person starin’ back at me
I’m a hazard to myself

2. “Family Portrait” (2002)
Written by P!nk and Scott Storch

Another Missundaztood single, “Family Portrait” is a raw account of a family falling to pieces through the perspective of a child. The song was inspired by P!nk’s own family fallout following her parents’ divorce and based on a poem she wrote during this time.

“That was from a poem that I wrote when I was 9 when my dad left,” revealed P!nk in a 2012 interview. “My mom cried for four days when she heard it. I’ve seen my dad cry three times and that was one of them; that was awful. And then my stepmom cried. She’s so strong. She was an Army nurse in Vietnam, and I’d never seen her cry. That was a song I wrote for me, and I didn’t realize how much it was going to hurt them.”

Momma please stop crying, I can’t stand the sound
Your pain is painful and it’s tearin’ me down
I hear glasses breaking as I sit up in my bed
I told dad you didn’t mean those nasty things you said

You fight about money, ’bout me and my brother
And this I come home to, this is my shelter
It ain’t easy growing up in World War III
Never knowing what love could be, you’ll see
I don’t want love to destroy me like it has done my family

3. “Sober” (2008)
Written by P!nk, Nathaniel Hills, Kara DioGuardi, and Marcella Araica

Off her fifth album Funhouse, and produced by No Doubt’s Tony Kanal, Jimmy Harry, and Danja, “Sober” is “about the vices that we choose,” said P!nk.

“I had this line in my head saying, ‘How do I feel this good sober,’” said P!nk of the track. “It’s not just about alcohol. It’s about vices. We all have different ones. We try to get away from ourselves and find our true selves, and then we do these things that take us so far from the truth. I guess that ‘Sober’ is ‘How do I feel this good when it’s just me, without anything to lean on?’”

I don’t wanna be the girl who laughs the loudest
Or the girl who never wants to be alone
I don’t wanna be that call at four o’clock in the mornin’
‘Cause I’m the only one you know in the world that won’t be home

4. “So What” (2008)
Written by P!nk, Max Martin, Shellback

Also off Funhouse, “So What” addresses P!nk’s split from husband Carey Hart, who appeared in the video for the track. (Hart also appears in P!nk’s videos for “True Love” and “Just Give Me a Reason” from her 2012 album, The Truth About Love, and “Just Like Fire.”) The two have since reunited and share a son and daughter together.

I guess I just lost my husband
I don’t know where he went
So I’m gonna drink my money
I’m not gonna pay his rent
I got a brand new attitude
And I’m gonna wear it tonight

5. “Raise Your Glass” (2010)
Written by P!nk, Max Martin, and Shellback

Off her Greatest Hits…So Far! compilation, P!nk wrote “Raise Your Glass” to commemorate her first 10 years as a musician as a tribute to her fans. Produced by Martin and Shellback, “Raise Your Glass” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

So raise your glass if you are wrong
In all the right ways
All my underdogs
We will never be never be, anything but loud
And nitty gritty dirty little freaks
Won’t you come on and come on and raise your glass
Just come on and come on and raise your glass

6. “Fuckin’ Perfect” (2010)
Written by P!nk, Max Martin, and Shellback

“Fuckin’ Perfect” is the actual song title of the second new single P!nk wrote for her 2010 Greatest Hits release, though it was cleaned up and is also credited as “Perfect.” Co-written with Swedish hitmakers Max Martin (Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys) and Shellback (Taylor Swift, Adele)—who also worked with P!nk on her 2008 power pop hit “So What” and “Raise Your Glass” in 2010—”Fuckin’ Perfect” is about the struggle to always try to be 100 percent to everyone but oneself, and was accompanied by a graphic video, which also touches on suicide.

Made a wrong turn, once or twice
Dug my way out, blood and fire
Bad decisions, that’s alright
Welcome to my silly life

Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss knowing it’s all good, it didn’t slow me down
Mistaken, always second guessing, underestimated
Look, I’m still around

7. “Blow Me (One Last Kiss)” (2012)
Written by P!nk and Greg Kurstin

On the more uptempo, synth-y lead single “Blow Me (One Last Kiss),” P!nk reflects on past relationships. When writing the song, she was imagining herself “at 2 a.m., in New York, dancing, drunk, letting off steam [with] all [her] punk-rock friends” while everyone sings along.

Produced by Greg Kurstin, The Truth About Love also features hits “Try” and P!nk’s Grammy-nominated Nate Ruess-duet on “Just Give Me One More Reason,” along with featured artists like Lily Allen and another collaboration with Eminem, who co-wrote and sings on the track “Here Comes the Weekend.”

White knuckles
And sweaty palms from
Hangin’ on too tight
Clenched shut jaw
I’ve got another
Headache again tonight

Eyes on fire, eyes on fire
And they burn from all the tears
I’ve been cryin’, I’ve been cryin’
I’ve been dyin’ over you

8. “What About Us” (2017)
Written by P!nk, Johnny McDaid, and Steve McCutcheon

Released on P!nk’s seventh album, Beautiful Trauma, which also features a track co-written by and featuring Eminem, “What About Us” could mean many things: a narrative on the current political climate and how leadership has often let people down, the breakdown of a relationship, or something else based solely on listener’s own interpretation.

“Explaining what a song is about is kind of a dangerous thing for me because it takes away the possibility of a song becoming whatever it is to somebody that listens to it,” said co-writer McDaid. “From my perspective, the creation of it is about looking into yourself, interacting. It’s like alchemy…you interact with the person there in the room and you [and] these things, these ideas come out and what the ideas are for Alecia [P!nk] are probably different to even the person hearing it.”

McDaid added, “And that’s the beauty of her, she really allows people to receive her music the way they do.”

We are searchlights, we can see in the dark
We are rockets, pointed up at the stars
We are billions of beautiful hearts
And you sold us down the river too far
What about us?
What about all the times you said you had the answers?

9. “Love Me Anyway,” Featuring Chris Stapleton (2019)
Written by P!nk, Allen Shamblin, and Tom Douglas

For her eighth album, Hurts 2B Human, P!nk continues her narratives circling around the human condition in a collaboration with Chris Stapleton on the country-tipped ballad “Love Me Anyway.” The song, which charted on the Billboard Country Airplay chart, marks another country collaboration for P!nk. In 2016, she joined Kenny Chesney on the track “Setting the World On Fire,” and Keith Urban on “One Too Many” in 2020. “Love Me Anyway” came out of a writing session P!nk joined in Nashville, Tennessee, and hit the country charts.

Even if you see my scars
Even if I break your heart
If we’re a million miles apart
Do you think you’d walk away?
If I get lost in all the noise
Even if I lose my voice
Flirt with all the other boys
What would you say?

10. “Never Gonna Dance Again” (2022)
Written by P!nk, Max Martin, and Shellback

The first single off P!nk’s upcoming 2023 album, Trustfall, “Never Gonna Dance Again” was fleshed out with her longtime co-writing duo of Max Martin and Shellback, who also produced Trustfall. “Never Gonna Dance Again” is a more upbeat song about dancing through hardships. The video, directed by P!nk along with Nick Florez & RJ Dure is set in a grocery store with P!nk skating and dancing through the aisles with a cast of characters. P!nk revealed that Trustfall is her favorite album to date, because she was able to work on it without a deadline during the pandemic and that writing helped her cope with the loss of father Jim Moore in 2021 and other personal upheavals.

“It’s very, very true to what I believe,” said P!nk, “where I am and what I’m feeling and what I think a lot of people are feeling.”

I feel so unsure
As I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor
As the music dies, something in your eyes
Calls to mind a silver screen
And all its sad good-byes

I’m never gonna dance again
Guilty feet have got no rhythm
Though it’s easy to pretend
I know you’re not a fool

Photo: Andrew MacPherson / RCA Records