Just North of Something Important

I wrote about four other ways of seeing the song. As folk, as pop obscurity, as more clearly liberal, and as evangelical:

“Before you came into my life / I missed you so bad,” Jepsen sings, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense at first. Through the rest of the song, the sequence has been clear. She “threw a wish in a well,” and then the object of her wish was “in my way,” newly appeared before her. She gives him her number and hopes that he’ll call, but one thing is clear: “I just met you.” So how could she have possibly missed him, before he came into her life just now? The only way would be if she’s expressing a kind of spiritual yearning put into her heart by a higher power. We find Jesus, after all; Jesus does not find us. We are created by God and then must find Him. Christians sometimes speak of the salvation experience as a process of experiencing a great emptiness without knowing what they lack, looking within their own hearts and welcoming Jesus into it, and finally feeling whole. Before Jesus came into their life, they missed him, without even understanding what it is they were missing.