On ‘Love Wins All’, IU renews our faith in romance

Love can feel hard to come by in our modern world, with headlines and news bulletins filled with mankind waging war against each other in one way or another. Beneath the images of destruction, we sit locked in a seemingly endless and hopeless cycle of swiping, praying for the algorithm to connect us with The One. Keeping your faith in love through it all is no simple feat.

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For IU, though, there is always hope. “Some call this an era of great loathing. Certainly, it doesn’t seem like a time rampant with love,” she shared in a message accompanying her first comeback in nearly three years. “But from my experience, even in its moments of triumph, hatred is always alone. On the other hand, love is stubbornly together, even as it runs, breaks and fades away. Love definitely has a fighting chance.”

That’s the idea at the core of her new single ‘Love Wins All’, which is also the first taste of her next album. A new addition to the spectacular collection of ballads she’s created over her 16-year career, it clings to love and finds comfort in it, whether as a form of escapism or facing up to the darker sides of our world.

“Dearest darling, my universe / Would you take me along?” she asks gently in the song’s opening lines. “To a place I can’t dream / With my poor imagination.” Later, she’s picking up a metaphorical camera, ready to “slowly film you with my eyes” and asking the subject of her lens to “Destroy me slowly and chilly, ruiner / I want to get sad with you, my lover”.

Delivered over a whisper of a piano melody and soft, unobtrusive strings, the sweeping, starlit ‘Love Wins All’ is a masterclass of a ballad. It makes you feel every ounce of emotion naturally, subtly leading you there through tone and lyricism rather than heavy-handedly signposting how it wants you to feel and react. Even the elegant explosion of a key change 40 seconds before the end feels entirely organic – by that point, you’ve likely already succumbed to the poignancy and romance of the track anyway (especially if you’re listening while watching the devastating music video).

“This story is about those who strive to love to the very end in a world that hinders loving,” IU explained in her message to fans. As she soars through that key change in the final chorus, hope and beautiful resilience never felt more possible. “Crush me in your arms / Give me a lovelier kiss, lover,” she pleads before shrugging off any doubts in a swooping, assured last melody: “Our love wins all, love wins all / Love, love, love, love.”

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