Olivia Dean’s “Baby Steps” is a beautifully tender, hopeful, and deeply realistic song about the quiet, deliberate process of healing after a painful breakup. It is a gentle anthem of resilience that champions the courage of slow, forward movement, finding profound strength in the small, everyday acts of learning to be alone again.
The Core Meaning: The Courage of Slow Progress
As the tenth track on her stunning sophomore album, The Art of Loving, “Baby Steps” is the sound of the hopeful, fragile dawn that follows a long and painful night. Arriving directly after the devastating, silent heartbreak of “Loud,” this song is the essential next chapter: the beginning of recovery. The core meaning of the track is a compassionate and realistic portrayal of the healing process. It rejects the dramatic “phoenix from the ashes” trope in favor of something far more gentle and human: the slow, tentative, and sometimes clumsy journey of moving forward, one small step at a time.
The song is a masterclass in finding beauty and strength in the mundane. The narrator is not making grand declarations of independence; she is navigating the quiet, intimate voids left by her partner’s absence. The pain is not in the dramatic confrontations, but in the small, everyday rituals—having no one to text when a plane lands, coming home to an empty house. “Baby Steps” is about the courageous and necessary work of filling those small voids with acts of self-love and self-reliance.
Ultimately, the song is a comforting and deeply empathetic anthem for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by the prospect of starting over. It is a gentle reminder that healing is not a race, and that progress is not always linear. The song’s central message is a powerful reframe: the goal is not to be instantly “over it,” but to simply not fall backward. It is a beautiful ode to the quiet strength it takes to become your “own pair of safe hands.”
The Art of Being Alone: Navigating the Post-Breakup Void
“Baby Steps” is a profoundly effective song because it so perfectly captures the specific, often unspoken textures of life immediately following a significant breakup. Olivia Dean wisely focuses not on the grand, philosophical pain of lost love, but on the “phantom limb” phenomenon of a partner’s absence in the tiny moments that make up a day.
The song is a study in these small voids. The detail of having “no one to text when the plane lands / Or to call when it’s taking off” is a moment of pure, heartbreaking relatability. These are the small, ingrained rituals of modern love, the almost unconscious acts of connection that serve as the connective tissue of a partnership. When the relationship ends, it is the silence in these specific moments that can feel the most profound and disorienting. The narrator is not just missing a person; she is missing a thousand tiny routines that made her feel safe and connected.
The song also beautifully articulates the challenge of re-learning to be a self-sufficient unit. The image of the ex-partner as a human phone charger—”When I’m down at ten percent / And you’d plug me straight back in”—is a perfect modern metaphor for emotional co-regulation. He was her source of energy, her quick fix for a bad day. The central task of “Baby Steps” is her learning to become her own power source. This is the quiet, unglamorous, but essential work of healing: learning to turn on your own lights, buy your own flowers, and be your own “safe hands.”
The Art of Loving‘s Narrative: The First Hopeful Step Forward
Within the intricate emotional journey of The Art of Loving, “Baby Steps” serves as the crucial first chapter of the album’s final, hopeful resolution. It is the direct emotional sequel to the devastating finality of “Loud.” That previous track was the album’s emotional rock bottom—a moment of pure, raw grief, confusion, and the pain of an unspoken ending. It left the protagonist and the listener in a state of quiet devastation.
“Baby Steps” is the moment the protagonist decides not to stay in that devastated landscape. It is the sound of her getting up, dusting herself off, and taking the first, tentative step out of the rubble. The song is a testament to her resilience. After a series of painful and failed attempts at love throughout the album, she does not become jaded or close herself off. Instead, she turns her focus inward, embarking on the most important relationship of all: the one with herself.
This track represents a pivotal lesson in the album’s titular “art of loving”: learning how to love and care for yourself in the aftermath of heartbreak. It is the beginning of a new kind of love story, one that is not dependent on another person for its happiness. The song’s gentle optimism and quiet determination signal a shift in the album’s tone, moving from the pain of romantic loss to the hopeful, empowering process of self-recovery. It is the first ray of sunlight after a long and difficult storm.
Lyrical Breakdown: A Dissection of Gentle Resilience
The lyrics of “Baby Steps” are a masterclass in conveying profound emotional shifts through simple, relatable imagery and a central, powerful metaphor.
[Verse 1] Acknowledging the Void and Making a Choice
The song opens with a perfect and poignant metaphor for the lingering presence of a recent ex: “It’s funny in the rear view / You’re closer than you are.” This beautifully captures the way a past love can loom larger in our minds than they do in reality, their memory feeling closer and more immediate than their actual physical distance. She then acknowledges the practical void his absence has created, using the modern metaphor of him being the person who could “plug me straight back in” when her emotional battery was low.
The verse then pivots from acknowledging the pain to making a conscious and powerful choice. The repetition of “Right, left, baby steps” is a mantra of deliberate, forward motion. It is the sound of someone coaching themselves through a difficult process. This leads to the verse’s most empowering declaration: “I’ll be my own pair of safe hands.” This is a profound statement of her commitment to becoming self-reliant, to finding her security within herself rather than in another person. She concludes with a beautiful reframe of the entire experience: “It’s not the end, it’s the making of.” She is choosing to see this painful breakup not as a destruction, but as a period of profound and necessary self-creation.
[Verse 2] The Daily Practice of Radical Self-Care
The second verse moves from the philosophical to the practical, detailing the small, everyday acts that constitute her new life of self-reliance. “It’s learning how to balance,” she sings, another simple but powerful metaphor for the challenge of finding her own footing without a partner to lean on. The image of being the one to “turn on them lights / When I come home” is a stark and relatable symbol of coming home to an empty house, a moment that can be particularly painful after a breakup.
Her quiet but firm response to this new reality is a testament to her strength: “But I’ll manage.” It is not a triumphant shout, but a steady, resolute promise to herself. The verse’s climax is a beautiful and profound act of radical self-care: “There’ll be roses on the shelf / ‘Cause this house gon’ love itself.” In this moment, she decides that she will not wait for a future partner to bring her beauty and love. She will provide it for herself. Buying her own flowers is a revolutionary act, a declaration that her home will be a space filled with love and care, generated from within.
[The Bridge] A New and Forgiving Philosophy of Progress
The short bridge of “Baby Steps” contains the most profound and comforting piece of wisdom in the entire song. It is a radical redefinition of progress and failure. “I won’t fall back / If I fall forwards / At least I have that,” she reasons. In this new philosophy, the only true failure is regression—moving backward into old patterns or old heartaches.
This mindset is incredibly liberating. It removes the paralyzing fear of making mistakes on the journey of healing. A stumble, a misstep, or a “fall forwards” is not a failure; it is still part of the process of moving away from the past. This compassionate and forgiving perspective is the essence of taking “baby steps.” It is about celebrating any and all forward momentum, no matter how small or clumsy it may be. It is a powerful and gentle mantra for anyone navigating the difficult and non-linear path of recovery.