You Broke Me First

"You Broke Me First" (often stylized in all lowercase) is a song by Canadian singer Tate McRae. It was released on April 17, 2020, through RCA Records as the lead single from her forthcoming second extended play. The song gained popularity on the video-sharing platform TikTok, where it has featured in over a million videos. Propelled by its TikTok popularity, the song has been successful on streaming platforms. It currently has over 525 million combined streams on Pandora and over 400 million streams on Spotify, as of January, 2021. The song impacted mainstream US radio on August 4, 2020.

"You Broke Me First" peaked at number eight on the Canadian Hot 100. Outside Canada, the song peaked within the top ten of the charts in Australia, Belgium (Flanders), Finland, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, Singapore, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Composition and lyrics
McRae recalls her lyric "But I don't really care how bad it hurts, cause you broke me first" being praised by songwriter Victoria Zaro and producer Blake Harnage while in the studio. She says that writing and recording the song was a "super quick process". Through the song, McRae expresses that she refuses to feel sympathetic for an ex-partner. She told Anna Rose of NME,

""This song is about someone in a relationship who couldn't care less for the other person and then 6 months later decides to crawl back. It's the feeling of knowing how much they meant to you, but this time not letting them back in."" McRae also revealed to Hollywood Life that the song is lyrically connected to its single successor, "Vicious".

Reception
Multiple critics wrote that the song was McRae's most personal to date, with some describing it as a "hard-hitting ballad".

Commercial performance
In the United Kingdom, "You Broke Me First" debuted at number 66 on the UK Singles Chart and later climbed to number five on the chart, becoming McRae's first top ten entry in Britain. The song later peaked at number three on the chart. In the Republic of Ireland, the song entered the Irish Singles Chart three weeks before and eventually rose to number nine, becoming the first top ten peak in her career. The song later peaked at number three on the chart. In New Zealand, the song entered at number 18 on the Hot Singles Chart upon its initial release, before debuting at number 34 on the New Zealand Singles Chart several weeks later amid its popularization. It has since peaked at number 12 on the chart. In the United States, the song would also become her first chart entry on the Billboard Hot 100, so far peaking at number 33.

Live performances
McRae performed the song at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards. In October, she performed the song on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. In November, McRae performed the song at the 2020 MTV Europe Music Awards and was praised by NME and Billboard for being one of the stand out performers.

Remixes and cover versions
A remix by German DJ Luca Schreiner was released on June 1, 2020, while a remix featuring Gryffin was released on October 9, 2020. British singer Conor Maynard released a cover of the song on October 16, 2020.

Personnel
Credits adapted from Tidal:


 * Blake Harnage – producer, composer, lyricist, recording engineer
 * Tate McRae – composer, lyricist
 * Victoria Zaro – composer, lyricist
 * Dave Kutch – mastering engineer
 * Jeff Juliano – mixing engineer