Take you to every party ’cause all you wanted to do was dance/
Now my baby’s dancing/
But she’s dancing with another man.

In “When I Was Your Man” Bruno Mars recollects what went wrong in his past relationship. He comes to the realization that he took the girl for granted. She had simple wants. She wanted to be romanced: she wanted to go out dancing, she wanted flowers…as he thinks about it, he thinks how easily he could have done that. When he sees her on the dance floor with another guy it breaks his heart.

Mars takes complete responsibility for all of it. He should have done these simple things when he was with her because now his heart is breaking. It is a very mature love song.

The arrangement for “When I was Your Man” is simple: it is mostly just Mars and a piano. I would love to hear more of this type of song from him as he really crushes this song. He also wrote another good love song for the piano with Adele that appears on this list: “All I Ask“. He certainly has a talent for it, hopefully he will produce more in the future. Not many can pull off just a piano and voice.

When I Was Your Man Lyrics

Same bed but it feels just a little bit bigger now.
Our song on the radio but it don’t sound the same.
When our friends talk about you, all it does is just tear me down,
‘Cause my heart breaks a little when I hear your name.

It all just sounds like ooh, ooh ooh,
Mm, too young, too dumb to realize,
That I should have bought you flowers;
And held your hand.
Should have gave you all my hours
When I had the chance.
Take you to every party ’cause all you wanted to do was dance.
Now my baby’s dancing,
But she’s dancing with another man.

My pride, my ego, my needs, and my selfish ways,
Caused a good strong woman like you to walk out my life.
Now I never, never get to clean up the mess I made,
And it haunts me every time I close my eyes.

It all just sounds like ooh, ooh ooh…
Mm, too young, too dumb to realize,
That I should have bought you flowers,
And held your hand;
Should have gave you all my hours
When I had the chance.
Take you to every party ’cause all you wanted to do was dance.
Now my baby’s dancing,
But she’s dancing with another man.

Although it hurts,
I’ll be the first to say that I was wrong.
Oh, I know I’m probably much too late
To try and apologize for my mistakes.
But I just want you to know…

I hope he buys you flowers,
I hope he holds your hand.
Give you all his hours,
When he has the chance.
Take you to every party,
‘Cause I remember how much you loved to dance.
Do all the things I should have done
When I was your man.
Do all the things I should have done
When I was your man.

Songwriters: Andrew Wyatt / Ari Levine / Peter Gene Hernandez / Philip Martin II Lawrence