The album’s lead single, “Better Together,” calls for unity. It was published by Brushfire Records in 2005 and is Johnson’s 3rd studio album.

The record was a commercial smash despite the not-so-welcoming reviews in its first few months. However, within the first year, it sold over two million copies across the U.S. alone. It quickly rose to the top of virtually every list throughout the world, and was also featured in TV shows, including Gavin & Stacey and Love Bites. Critics and listeners had drawn comparisons between Johnson and Ben Harper at the time, and Ben Harper allegedly heard Johnson’s music and invited him to join his record label as a result.

Song Lyrics Meaning of Better Together

Better Together’s ease of use is its greatest strength. None of this could be achievable without the vibrancy in Jack Johnson’s vocals, which can take you anywhere you desire to go. In an interview, Jack Johnson said: “It’s a song about working together and being together. It’s a love song for her [Julia Louis-Dreyfus].”

But to return to basics, Better Together is just that guitar, a voice, some hesitant piano keys, and a harmonica. Johnson recognized that this was the song’s greatest asset. Those who heard it could focus solely on the song’s lyrical splendor.

Jack Johnson invited listeners into his private world with this music. When he sings, it’s almost as if he’s whispering, as if he’s revealing something deeply intimate to the universe. These sentiments, however, are prevalent. It’s what transformed a tender ballad into a commercial smash.

According to the musician, the lyrics make it clear that he wrote them with his wife and their relationship as a married couple in mind. However, he has also admitted that he ultimately desired it to serve as the theme music for any romantic story on the planet.

Ultimately, Better Together teaches us something we already know to be true: that being with the one special person you love improves everything. It is everything nicer when sung by Jack Johnson. Starting the music, he laments how hard it is when she is not there. He recalls their time together near the end. In another interview with Pavlina, he said: I like “Better Together that I like a lot because I think partly I’ve had so many people tell me stories about when they’ve used the song in their lives it’s a lot of people have gotten used on their wedding day for their first dance or bringing their kid home to their house for the first time played it in the car just different stories like that that I’ve heard and so I think because I’ve heard these stories and it seems like that song means more in other people’s lives, it makes me like the song even more.”

In the opening line, he describes his struggle to find the appropriate words to express his feelings for her via a postcard. Even still, he persists in his efforts to reach his goal. The words are few, but they pack a powerful punch in a perfect way.

Jack continues to reflect on how the beautiful moments will return to him in his fantasies but then go as immediately as he gets up in the next stanza. Repeat daily, night after night.

Still, he hopes things remain unchanged. The dreaming makes him feel as though he doesn’t have as much liberty with his sweetheart during the day because he does it over the night.

I’d have the sensation of being in a transitional state between night and daytime. Seeing his wife awake next to him each morning brings him great joy. One point thing is sure: we are better united. Time cannot be enough; neither music nor words can assist her in conveying her love.

No one can read this stanza and not feel a connection to it. If we are truly in love with another person, we can give our all and achieve the seemingly unattainable. And every time one concludes that, despite the chaos surrounding our life, it is always preferable, as Jack says, when the portions that love one another are united.

Conclusion

Better Together is a heartfelt and emotional ballad written by Jack Johnson. Additionally, the song is global because it touches on themes that everyone can understand. We all have had that one person in our lives who made everything better. Whatever it was, sharing it with that individual made it more enjoyable.

Lyrics

There’s no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing, but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a shoe box of photographs
With sepia-toned loving
Love is the answer, at least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it’s so hard?
It’s not always easy and
Sometimes life can be deceiving
I’ll tell you one thing, it’s always better when we’re together

Mmm, it’s always better when we’re together
Yeah, we’ll look at the stars when we’re together
Well, it’s always better when we’re together
Yeah, it’s always better when we’re together

And all of these moments
Just might find their way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they’ll be gone
When the morning light sings
Or brings new things
For tomorrow night you see
That they’ll be gone too
Too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way
Into my day to day scene
I’d be under the impression
I was somewhere in between
With only two
Just me and you
Not so many things we got to do
Or places we got to be
We’ll sit beneath the mango tree now

Yeah, it’s always better when we’re together
Mmm, we’re somewhere in between together
Well, it’s always better when we’re together
Yeah, it’s always better when we’re together

I believe in memories
They look so, so pretty when I sleep
Hey now and, and when I wake up
You look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time
And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We’re better together

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Jack Hody Johnson

Better Together lyrics © Bubble Toes Publishing, Reach Music Publishing

Listeners that enjoy this song from the 2010’s may also be interested in the song Close to Me by Elllie Goulding.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published December 4, 2022 and last updated May 28, 2023.