Sombr’s i wish i knew how to quit you is a diary-like pop confession about unrequited love, carried by plainspoken lyrics and warm, nostalgic production.
Sombr writes like someone trying to keep the past from fogging the mirror.
“i wish i knew how to quit you” turns longing into muscle memory, the kind that tightens your chest before the hook even lands.
The ache sits right in the throat of the vocal while the instrumentation swells around it, a warm blur that pulls nostalgia and desire into the same room.
On paper it is simple. Track 3 on his debut album I Barely Know Her, out August 22, 2025 via SMB/Warner.
Written by Sombr, produced with Tony Berg, mixed and mastered by Shawn Everett with Will Maclellan on additional and recording duties.
The first hit arrives like a confession he has rehearsed a thousand times and still can’t say without wincing: “You were never mine, but I was always yours.”
Then the line that names the whole mood, half-defiance, half-surrender: “I wish I knew how to quit ya.”
He doesn’t duck the spiral. “I’m unwell / I’d rather take another bottle off the top of the shelf,” he sings, and the admission stings because it isn’t dressed up.
It feels like someone speaking from the kitchen floor at 2 a.m., not a studio booth at noon.
The sound leans into that diary feel. There is a pulse underneath that never hurries, a gentle throb that lets his voice braid through the arrangement rather than sit on top of it.
When the groove settles, the vocal grain softens at the edges, almost like tape left in the sun.
That slight blur is doing real emotional work here. The chorus doesn’t resolve with a fist-pump cadence; it hangs.
There is an unfinished sensation in the melody, the way it leaves you reaching for a chord that never comes. The hook is missing a tidy closure because he hasn’t found it either.
He builds his world with concrete pieces. “When I put you on the counter of my tiny place in Brooklyn and we kissed like there was nothing to lose.”
The image is small and lived-in. You can see the chipped tile and the coffee mug still wet in the sink.
He pushes the intimacy further and it lands like a private vow that should have stayed in the room: “Oh, you’re in my DNA, so much exchanged / At least I know when you’re away, there’ll always be a part of you that stayed.”
These aren’t clever metaphors for sport; they are the kind of lines people write when they are trying to talk themselves into letting go and failing at it.
If you have followed Sombr’s singles run, you know the tug between plain speech and romantic myth is his home field.
What makes this one stick is the way the arrangement mirrors that push.
The verses feel close-miked and human, the chorus opens a little sky, and then the bridge narrows the room again until a single thought fills it: “I love you while I sleep, then I wake up alone.”
He follows it with a line that turns the apartment into a body: “I live inside a house, without you it’s not home.”
You don’t need a whiteboard to decode it. You just have to sit with it for a second and let the air change.
There is a case to be made that the vocal treatment will split the audience.
Some early listeners flag the grain and mild distortion as “too much makeup,” especially when the chorus stacks up and the edges smear.
Others hear a deliberate soft focus that fits a story about addiction to a person.
The unresolved contour of “I wish I knew how to quit ya” works like an unanswered text.
You replay it, not because it is flashy, but because it won’t finish the sentence for you.
Both reads can live here, and that tension keeps the song from collapsing into a single mood.
What the track does not do is posture. It owns the mess and lets the listener decide how much dignity to grant the narrator. “I won’t call it off ’til I’m stone,” he admits, and you can feel the bargain hiding behind the bravado.
He will keep pretending indifference until numbness does the job.
The very next breath walks back the act, detailing the tiny rituals of attachment like stacking bottles on a shelf and crowding the counter with a memory that refuses to leave.
I Barely Know Her gathers a run of songs already flirting with mass attention, but the album sequence places “i wish i knew how to quit you” near the top, where it can anchor the theme without draining it.
That choice matters. Put this track deeper and it reads as a reprise; put it third and it becomes a benchmark for everything that follows.
The part that lingers is not a flourish. It is the way he lets desire sit right next to self-respect without pretending they agree.
“You were never mine, but I was always yours” is the statement and the trap. He knows the imbalance. He still shows up.
He keeps showing up until the song fades, and it never tells you whether he finally stops.
That is the honest thing here. Not a victory lap, not a neon red flag, just the space where a person hears themselves and isn’t sure what to do next.
The chorus leaves its last step missing, the way certain doors stay locked even when you know where the spare key is kept.
If you hear that gap as weakness, you might be right. If you hear it as honesty, you might be right too.
Either way, the feeling is unmistakable, and that is why this one sticks.
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Sombr’s i wish i knew how to quit you Lyrics
Verse 1
I won’t call it off ’til I’m stone
I’ll write a book with all the reasons I could call you my home, but I won’t
‘Cause you’re unavailable
I won’t save myself, I’m unwell
I’d rather take another bottle off the top of the shelf
Than get help
‘Cause you’re no good for my health
Chorus
I wish I knew how to quit ya
You were never mine, but I was always yours
I wish I knew how to quit ya
But I’m addicted to you more and more
Verse 2
When I put you on the counter
Of my tiny place in Brooklyn and we kissed like there was nothing to lose
Did you feel what I did too?
Oh, you’re in my DNA, so much exchanged
At least I know when you’re away, there’ll always be a part of you that stayed
You’re the echo in my veins
Chorus
I wish I knew how to quit ya
You were never mine, but I was always yours
I wish I knew how to quit ya
But I’m addicted to you more and more
Bridge
I love you while I sleep, then I wake up alone
I live inside a house, without you it’s not home
They don’t know what it’s like to live and never know
If the one that you wait for is ever gonna show
Chorus
I wish I knew how to quit ya
You were never mine, but I was always yours
I wish I knew how to quit ya
But I’m addicted to you more and more
I wish I knew how to quit ya
You were never mine, but I was always yours
I wish I knew how to quit ya
But I’m addicted to you more and more
