Meant To Be
Song Meaning

“Meant to Be” is about the uncertain early stage of a romantic connection, where both partners decide to stop forcing an outcome and instead let fate determine whether the relationship will work, summed up in the repeated line “if it’s meant to be, it’ll be.” The female verse reveals guardedness from past heartbreak (“my heart’s been hurt a couple times / by a couple guys that didn’t treat me right”), while the male voice reassures her and invites her to “ride with me” and see where things go. Notably, the song wasn’t written with this meaning pre-planned: it came together when a session Florida Georgia Line had booked with Charlie Puth fell through 1, and Bebe Rexha has described her approach to writing it as simply “going with feel” rather than working from a fixed concept 1.

The meaning

At its core, “Meant to Be” is a song about surrendering control in a new relationship. The chorus, “if it’s meant to be, it’ll be, it’ll be / baby, just let it be,” frames romance as something to be discovered rather than engineered, an invitation to stop analyzing the outcome and simply be present with someone (“who knows where this road is supposed to lead? / we got nothing but time”).

The verses add emotional texture to that fatalism. Florida Georgia Line’s opening verse sets a relaxed, low-stakes scene (“lay on back and relax / kick your pretty feet up on my dash”), while Bebe Rexha’s verse introduces the reason the narrator needs convincing to let go: she’s been burned before. “My heart’s been hurt a couple times / by a couple guys that didn’t treat me right” reads as a directly autobiographical-sounding admission of romantic caution, and “I’m tired of the fake love” signals she wants sincerity, not just another fleeting fling. The male response, “don’t you know you’re beautiful,” functions as reassurance meant to ease that guardedness.

The bridge (“maybe we do / maybe we don’t / maybe we will / maybe we won’t”) keeps the song’s central tension unresolved by design. Rather than promising a happy ending, the song sits in ambiguity, arguing that not knowing how things will turn out is part of what makes the connection worth pursuing (“so won’t you ride with me, ride with me? / see where this thing goes”).

That loose, unforced quality extends to how the song itself came to exist. It wasn’t written as a planned single with a predetermined message; it emerged when a co-writing session Florida Georgia Line had scheduled with Charlie Puth was canceled, leaving the writers to fill the time differently 1. Rexha has said her guiding principle in the room was to follow instinct rather than impose structure on herself, telling one outlet, “my thing is going with feel and not creating any boundaries for myself” 1. That improvisational mindset mirrors the song’s own message: rather than forcing a result, both the songwriters and the characters in the lyrics let things unfold naturally and trust that whatever is “meant to be” will reveal itself.

Last updated 2026-09-08