Songfacts®:

• "West Side" is an intimate statement of intent where Ariana Grande lays out her expectations of a new romance and outlines their future together. He tells her new beau if he joins her in simply following his emotions without thinking too much, it will lead to a loving relationship.
• Show up, now if you're down to roll up
  Meet me on the west side for me
  
  The song is likely based on Grande's relationship with real estate agent Dalton Gomez. Grande was born and raised in Boca Raton, Florida, on the east side of the United States. Gomez comes from Southern California, which is on the "West Side" of the US.
• Grande penned the song with her friend and frequent co-writer Victoria Monét. They co-wrote six of the Positions tracks together.
• This low-slung slice of R&B was produced by:
  
  Tommy "TBHits" Brown, who has worked with Ariana Grande since her debut album.
  
  German producer Xavier "Xavi" Herrera, who also co-produced "34+35."
  
  Ammar Junedi, also known as AJsounds, who is a producer based in Rotterdam. This is his first credit with a major artist.
• The beat samples Aaliyah's 1996 single "One in a Million."
• At 2:12 this is the shortest song on the Positions album. None of the 14 tracks exceed four minutes.
• Ammar Junedi had been placing beats with old-school R&B vibes for several years on YouTube. Then in late 2019, Xavi hit him up after coming across his channel. The German producer told Junedi he was looking for R&B stuff, so the Dutch beatmaker started sending him packs of melodies and loops. He told Genius how he ended up with a placement on this song:
  
  "Honestly, that melody that's on the track, I made it in like five minutes. It's just some chords that I played in an Omnisphere patch and I reversed it, so it was simple. I didn't think it'd land with Ariana Grande because I actually had some other beats with him [Xavi] that were way better or way more exciting. I was surprised that one was the one she picked. It was really like a throwaway basically."