Shawn Mendes' New Song 'If I Can't Have You' Was Originally Meant For This Other Artist

We don’t know about you, but we’re obsessed with Shawn Mendes‘ new song, “If I Can’t Have You”.

However, it almost went to another artist – Dua Lipa!

Chatting with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 about the track, he revealed that it was written a long while ago with Scott Harris.

“We wrote a ton of songs. I was back in the studio with Teddy Geiger and Nate and I was playing it on piano and I was like oh my god this would be really cool for Dua Lipa,” Shawn recalls. “It was on guitar and I turned it to piano it was right after ‘One Kiss’ came out. In the voice note – I’m speaking like I’m gonna send to Dua I’m like ‘okay Dua I have this song I have just a chorus we can finish it if you want,’ and I’m singing it on the piano and I’m like ok cool, I’m gonna send it to her.”

He continues, “A couple weeks later I’m in the studio with Scott playing it again and I go, dude this is really serious I don’t know if I can ask Dua to sing it – though that would’ve been incredible – I said I think I gotta go all the way with this.”

Shawn continued about the track that ultimately became his, “It’s a confident pop record and it’s clearly that for me. I’m going through this phase right now where I’m testing out all the styles I can possibly be doing.

“Pop is whats in my blood, no pun intended. In the last 6 months, I wrote about 45 songs and they’re all over the place and different vibes. This is the one consistently every time I played for myself and for friends and family was giving people that smile.”