Samuel Frederick Smith (born 19 May 1992) is an English singer and songwrit… Read Full Bio ↴Samuel Frederick Smith (born 19 May 1992) is an English singer and songwriter. They rose to prominence in October 2012 after being featured on Disclosure's breakthrough single "Latch", which peaked at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart. Smith was subsequently featured on Naughty Boy's "La La La", which became a number one single in May 2013. In December 2013, they were nominated for the 2014 Brit Critics' Choice Award and the BBC's Sound of 2014 poll, winning both.

Smith's debut studio album, In the Lonely Hour, was released in May 2014 on Capitol Records UK. The album's lead single, "Lay Me Down", was released prior to "La La La". The album's second single, "Money on My Mind", became Smith's second number one single in the UK. The third single, "Stay with Me", was an international success, reaching number one in the UK and number two on the US Billboard Hot 100, while their singles "I'm Not the Only One" and "Like I Can" reached the top ten in the UK. The album won four awards, at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Vocal Album, Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and nominations for Album of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.

For Smith's and Jimmy Napes's song "Writing's on the Wall", the theme for the James Bond film Spectre (2015), Smith won the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Smith's second studio album, The Thrill of It All, was released in November 2017 and debuted atop the UK and US album charts. The lead single, "Too Good at Goodbyes", reached number one in the UK and Australia and number four in the US. They released the single "Promises" with Calvin Harris, which peaked at number one in the UK. Smith released "Dancing with a Stranger" with Normani in 2019, which reached the top ten in the UK and the US and was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2020 Brit Awards, and followed it by releasing a string of commercially successful singles "How Do You Sleep?", "To Die For" and "I'm Ready" with Demi Lovato; all of which feature on Smith's third album, Love Goes.

Smith has won four Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, three Billboard Music Awards, and an American Music Award, as well as a Golden Globe and an Academy Award through their career. Smith has been publicly gay since 2014, genderqueer since 2017, and has used they/them pronouns since 2019.

Momentarily Mine
Sam Smith Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Moments I make momentarily mine
Are moments I take a step back in time
Each step that I take is leading me to
A time when I felt closer to you
Moments I gain, moments I lose
I'm just killing time trying to find
What we had once has been left behind
Here we both stand as it slips through our hands

Moments we care a little too much
Moments we care are never enough
Clinging to pride, our heads held high
What we truly feel is pushed to the side
Moments we gain are moments we lose
We're just killing time trying to find
What we had once has been left behind
Yet we stand as it slips through our hands

We know we can
We can survive
Survive before
That comes be before pride
That comes before pride

I'll be just killing time
What we had once has been left behind

And here we stand as it slips through our hands
Moments we gain and moments we lose

Overall Meaning

In Sam Smith's song Momentarily Mine, the singer reflects on moments from a past relationship that he wishes he could reclaim. The opening lines, "Moments I make momentarily mine, Are moments I take a step back in time," suggest that the singer believes he can temporarily transport himself back to a happier time, albeit only briefly. He is leading himself through a journey down memory lane in these moments. The following lines, "Each step that I take is leading me to, A time when I felt closer to you," reveal that he is searching for a sense of closeness that he has lost. He remembers how it felt to be connected to his former partner and he wants to relive that moment in time.

As the song progresses, it becomes clear that the singer is experiencing conflicting emotions. He acknowledges that he both gains and loses moments, and that he is "just killing time trying to find what we had once has been left behind." The moments the singer cares for are never enough to fulfill his desire to reconnect with his former partner. The chorus describes the push and pull of pride versus vulnerability within the relationship: "Clinging to pride, our heads held high, What we truly feel is pushed to the side." But ultimately, the singer knows that he and his partner could survive if they put pride aside - "We know we can survive before that comes before pride."

The final lines of the song, "And here we stand as it slips through our hands, Moments we gain and moments we lose," encapsulate the central theme of the song: the passage of time and how easily precious moments can be lost. The singer regrets that he cannot regain what he once had with his partner, and he is haunted by the memories that he can only hold onto momentarily.

Line by Line Meaning

Moments I make momentarily mine
I cling to certain moments in my mind that I know won't last forever

Are moments I take a step back in time
They're moments that take me back to a time when things were different

Each step that I take is leading me to
Every moment lived is taking me closer to a past memory

A time when I felt closer to you
When I felt a deeper connection to someone else

Moments I gain, moments I lose
I experience ups and downs, good and bad memories

I'm just killing time trying to find
I'm trying to recapture what I once had

What we had once has been left behind
The past is unchangeable

Here we both stand as it slips through our hands
We are both powerless to stop the passage of time

Moments we care a little too much
Some memories are more important to us than others

Moments we care are never enough
Those precious moments are always fleeting and never quite enough

Clinging to pride, our heads held high
We don't want to let anyone see how much some memories still affect us