Meaning Behind the Song: How Pink Convinced Nate Ruess to Sing on “Just Give Me a Reason”

Pink and Nate Ruess had a massive hit on their hands with the duet “Just Give Me a Reason,” but it was a struggle to get there.

Released as the third single off Pink’s 2012 album, The Truth About Love, “Reason” achieved both critical acclaim and chart success. The two co-wrote the song with producer Jeff Bhasker about a relationship on the brink of collapse, with both parties acknowledging the dark place they’re in, yet willing to repair the damage.

Pink and Ruess, the lead singer of the indie pop band Fun, ended up in a writing session together where they wrote the song and thought it would end there. Pink says that they wrote the first verse and most of the chorus in one day and that it wasn’t written with the intention of being a collaboration. But after sitting with the song overnight, Pink had a change of heart and decided to make the song a duet, knowing that Ruess’ voice is the only one that would fit.

“We were just collaborating as writing partners,” Pink told Billboard in 2013. “But I was like, ‘This song is a conversation between lovers.’ And he had to do it because he’s my favorite voice right now, aside from probably Adele.”

From there, Pink took the lead on writing the second verse and pitched it as a duet with Ruess. But the Fun frontman was hesitant at first, unsure of how his bandmates and the indie label they were signed to would react.

“And he was like, ‘I don’t know how my band’s going to feel about it.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I get it. I wouldn’t want to be on a song with a pop star either. But you can’t deny that it’s a conversation’ —you just put the vocals down as the scratch vocal,” she continues, adding that she “tricked him into doing it.”

“He sang it and I knew, no matter what he said, no one was going to sing it better. It just took many, many months of convincing.”

In an interview with Digital Spy, Ruess confirmed that it did take time for him to warm up to the idea of singing on a mainstream pop song, considering the fact that Fun is a mainstay in the alternative music scene.

“I usually don’t write for people. … It’s not something that I particularly enjoy,” he explained. “I feel very lucky that it happened on the Pink song and she kind of twisted my arm to sing it with her. I kind of just wanted to write it and be done with it. And she twisted my arm and I thought in retrospect it was such a great thing because I actually got to see what it means to write a song like that which is a little more pop and the way that it touches people and if I go to a restaurant someone will just come up to me and talk about what it emotionally means to them.”

Pink’s efforts were well worth it, as “Just Give Me a Reason” became a worldwide hit. It claimed the No. 1 spot on charts in the U.S., New Zealand, Portugal, Germany and other countries. It topped the Billboard Hot 100, Adult Contemporary, Adult Top 40 and Mainstream Top 40 charts in the U.S. It was also nominated for Song of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 2014 Grammy Awards.

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for iHeartRadio