Meaning of “Lipstick” by Charlie Puth
Atlantic Records introduced “Lipstick” to the marketplace on 18 August 2023. This track serves as the lead single from Puth’s forth studio album. That project is the follow-up to the singer’s 2022 album, “Charlie”, which made it onto the top 10 of the Billboard 200 and UK Albums Chart.
As with Puth, the other composers of this song – Pop Wansel, Happy Perez and Jacob Kasher – are all notable music industry professionals. All four of them are credited with writing “Lipstick”, with Charlie, Pop and Happy also producing the track.
The Lyrics of “Lipstick”
This is a love song, one in which the vocalist is advising the addressee to ‘put her lipstick on his neck and body’. However, Charlie is not encouraging her to do so for sexual or amorous reasons per se, at least not as far as the chorus is concerned. Rather, his intent is to go out in public, still smeared with her love.
And the reason he’s doing so, as expressed in the chorus, is because he wants “to show these b*tches” that he already has a lady and furthermore one that he is in fact smitten with.
That ambition is meant to point to the thesis sentiment of this track, which is the singer’s desire to out this romance. In other words, he wants to make the addressee his actual, full-fledged, official girlfriend, one whom the entire world knows that the two of them are dating.
So Puth is likewise encouraging her to let go and trust him, as well as seemingly (in the pre-chorus) assuring her that he’s not going to mess around with other women.
Of course there are more SFW ways for a guy to express his desire to lock a lady down than telling her to cover him with visible kisses. And later on in the song, the bridge does verify that yes, there’s a sexual dimension to giving her such instruction also. But all lyrics considered, this is not a sex song. “Lipstick” is indeed a love song, albeit one which uses amorous imagery to help get its point across.
