Songfacts®:

• "Somebody Else's" is a raw, no-holds-barred breakup track where Gwen Stefani peels back the layers of her emotional scars and lets you see every bruise. She doesn't mince words when it comes to her ex, describing him with phrases like "narcissistic" and "semi-psychotic." Yikes. You can almost hear the venom in her voice.
  
  But what's truly telling is that she's not even that torn up about him moving on with somebody else. The relationship was so toxic, she's just relieved it's over.
• Stefani also throws in a nod to finding "the real thing," a clear wink toward her marriage to country star Blake Shelton.
• Naturally, the fan gossip mill went into overdrive, with many speculating that the song is about Stefani's ex-husband, Gavin Rossdale. After all, the two spent over two decades together, were married from 2002 to 2015, and have three kids. Several months prior to the song's release, Rossdale went public with a new girlfriend Xhoana X, adding further fuel to the rumors that Stefani's biting lyrics are aimed squarely at him.
• "Somebody Else's" fits snugly into Stefani's long tradition of breakup songs, following the emotional bloodletting of No Doubt's "Don't Speak" and her solo album, This Is What the Truth Feels Like, which was heavily inspired by the end of her marriage to Rossdale. The song's raw honesty and emotional depth hit just as hard as those tracks.
• "Somebody Else's" was released as the lead single from Stefani's fifth album, Bouquet. "It's interesting that this song rose to become to the new single, because the rest of the record has nothing to do with that subject," she noted to Rolling Stone.
  
  Many of the other songs were inspired by Stefani's marriage to Shelton and their shared love of gardening. Other titles include "Marigolds," "Late to Bloom," "Empty Vase," "Bouquet" and "Purple Irises."
  
  The Bouquet album title was suggested by Shelton, referencing metaphors about growth, renewal, hope and their shared experience of planting wildflowers on their Oklahoma farm.
• Stefani co-wrote the track with Fred Ball, Jacob Kasher Hindlin, Dark Waves, Madison Love, Jake Torrey, and Henry Walter.
  
  A lot of credit goes to Madison Love, a Los Angeles songwriter who worked on Machine Gun Kelly and Camilla Cabello's "Bad Things," G-Eazy and Halsey's "Him & I" and Ava Max's "Kings & Queens." She and Stefani engaged in writing sessions that involved "a lot of confession and just talk about life and where we're at now, where we were."
  
  "She came with the idea, and I was like, 'Uh oh, I don't even know if I want to give that any energy,'" Stefani recalled.
  
  But after writing the rest of the album, the pop star realized the song was necessary: "You needed to see a little bit of the dark to see the light."
• Scott Hendricks, a regular collaborator of Blake Shelton's produced the track. So, you'd think with a producer best known for his work in country music and a cowboy hat on the single cover, Stefani might be taking a stroll down Nashville's main drag. But instead, the song harks back to the punchy, new wave pop-rock of her No Doubt days, with rollicking guitars and a whole lot of attitude.