“Do you believe in life after love?” These are the main lines in Cher’s Believe. Cher believes that after a break-up she can move on, even though she still mourns the loss of her lover, because she believes she is strong enough. Cher looks at how her lover will feel after the lover realizes she feels no love loss. She also sees that the relationship is not salvageable because the lover keeps “pushing her aside”. The theme of the song is that however hard the break-up is the person can still move on even though the person still mourns the loss of the lover.

From the very first lines of the song, the speaker notes the hopelessness of the relationship. “You keep pushing me aside/ And I can’t break through” shows how the speaker can’t seem to “break through” towards her ex-lover. It gives the song potential to become gloomy and desolate. The repetition of the line “And I can’t do that throughout the piece shows how rekindling the relationship is not possible for the speaker does not want to wait.  However the speaker turns the mode of the song around in line eight and nine by saying “But after all is said and done/ You’re going to be the lonely one” turning the mode into one of optimism and hope. This gives the chorus as more evidence towards the theme of being able to stay strong and “life after love”.

In the third stanza the speaker begins this pattern again but reverses it from trying to rekindle the relationship towards the speaker realizing that it is not worth it. The speaker shows this by saying “Sit around and wait for you/ And I can’t do that”.  This enforces the theme of being able to move on. The speaker enforces the need and the ability by saying “There’s no turning back/ I need time to move on”. The speaker goes on through the stanza encouraging him/ her to move on. “’Cause I’ve had enough time to think it through/ And maybe I’m too good for you” encourages the speaker to get over the relationship and shows how the relationship isn’t worth salvaging. The third stanza is an influential piece of evidence that shows the theme of moving on.

In the chorus the speaker shows that they “believe in life after love”. This meaning that the speaker believes he/ she can live after their lover has left them. The speaker encourages themselves by repeating the phrases “I can feel something inside me say/ I really don’t think you’re strong enough” showing that the speaker doubts their ex-lover’s strength.  The repetition of the word “no” shows that the speaker believes that his/ her ex-lover does not have the strength to move on. The speaker is set that their ex-lover is a weak person who will not be able to move on from the break-up. The speaker encourages themselves by noticing the mistakes of their ex-lover and believes he/she is able to move on after the break-up.

Overall, Cher’s “Believe” is a song of moving on. The lyrics encourage the speaker to move on from their ex-lover. In the song, the speaker uses the refrain “I really don’t think you’re strong enough” to encourage themselves and put down their ex-lover. It helps by adding a mode of empowerment and optimism. The mode helps show the theme of being able to move on even though the speaker mourns the loss of their ex-lover. The theme of the song is that however hard the break-up is the person can still move on even though the person still mourns the loss of the lover.