Sam Smiths’ “Gloria” Meaning
Sam Smiths’ “Gloria” has just a single scanty verse and chorus. However, it is one of the deepest song’s of their career.
Sam begins the song by talking about the presence of “demons” on his shoulder and “monsters” in his head. The demons Sam battles are of course not real demons. They would apparently be the challenges Sam’s life is afflicted with.
Sam doesn’t have a perfect life just like everyone else’s life isn’t. Over the years, Sam has been very open about his personal challenges. For example, they have revealed to the world of their struggles with body dysmorphia – a mental health challenge which makes a sufferer become obsessed about the defects in the way they look.
Back in 2019, Sam said the source of all their sadness was their battle with body image issues. They even revealed that just at the age of 12 they even had liposuction on their chest because they were excessively overweight. According to Sam, barely two weeks after the surgery, they “put the weight back on”. This of course depressed Sam greatly. As a child, he was so severely teased for being overweight that he was often depressed. This in addition to Sam being queer, made life as a teenager extremely challenging.
Demons, “will you be my friend”?
The monsters and demons Sam mentions in “Gloria” likely stand for the challenges in their life. The singer has spent all their life fighting these forces. However, now they have come to realize that fighting is not solution since they can never win this war. Owing to this, Sam is holding out an olive branch to the demons and asking them to be their friend.
What Sam is basically doing here is learning to love themselves for who they are. They have decided to see the flaws and defects on their body as something to embrace rather than fight. So it can be said that when Sam asks the “demons” to be their friend, they are basically engaging in an exercise of self-love.
In a 2023 interview Sam had with The Sunday Times, they revealed that they had finally began overcoming their insecurity by learning to love the body God gave them. Sam revealed that doing so has now made their life “happier than ever”.
Who is “Gloria”?
“Gloria” isn’t an actual person. According to Smith, we all have “a fighter voice” in our head which encourages us to never give up in life. Sam calls the fighter voice inside them “Gloria”.
So all in all, this song is “a hymn for Gloria” – the fighting power in Sam.
When was “Gloria” released?
On January 20th, 2023, Capitol Records released “Gloria” as a promotional single from Sam’s fourth studio album (which is also titled “Gloria”).
Credits
Sam shares writing credits with Northern Irish singer, Foy Vance on “Gloria”. Sam also shares the song’s production credits with longtime collaborator Jimmy Napes. Irish record producer and multi-instrumentalist, David Odlum, also has a production credit on “Gloria”.
