"Don't Let Me Get Me" is a song by American singer Pink. It was released as the second single from her second studio albumMissundaztood in December 2001. The song was featured in the trailer for the 2003 comedy Just Married. "Don't Let Me Get Me" received positive reviews from music critics, who praised the tone of the song. Commercially, it was a success, becoming Pink's fifth single to chart within the top ten on the US BillboardHot 100, rising to number eight, and it was her first number one on the BillboardMainstream Top 40 chart. Outside the US, the song became Pink's second consecutive number-one single in New Zealand and reached the top ten in 14 other countries, including Australia, Ireland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. A music video promoting the single was filmed and released in December 2001.
Composition
"Don't Let Me Get Me" is set in the key of E major in common time with a tempo of 98 beats per minute. The song moves at a chord progression of E–Cm–B–A, and Pink's vocals span from E3 to B4.
Reception
"Don't Let Me Get Me" reached number one in New Zealand, number six in the United Kingdom and number eight in Australia and the United States. The song earned positive reports from music critics, but most gave sensitively mixed reviews upon her self-hating lyrical content. Robert Christgau in his consumer guide for MSN wrote that "Despite Pink's audacious claim that she's not as pretty as 'damn Britney Spears,' celebrity anxiety takes a backseat to a credible personal pain rooted in credible family travails, a pain held at bay by expression." Jim Farber of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "In Don't Let Me Get Me, she turns self-loathing into a perverse kind of anthem." Jason Thompson of PopMatters wrote, "on the power rock of 'Don’t Let Me Get Me,' Pink herself tells it like it is and attempts to break free from the image making machine. 'Tired of being compared / To damn Britney Spears / She’s so pretty / That just ain’t me.' Well, that’s debatable in itself, but the fact that Pink takes it upon herself to call Spears out should be nothing short of revelatory. Spears certainly has nothing on Pink in the vocal department. Pink can actually sing. And damn well, mind you." Jim Alexander wrote a negative review, saying that the rest of Missundaztood is full of bad songs and that "'Don't Let Me Get Me' and 'Dear Diary' see all pop joy expunged for acoustic seriousness, dreary unobtrusive beats and lyrics about relationship woes and record company badness."
Music video
The music video for "Don't Let Me Get Me" was shot by director Dave Meyers. It depicts Pink as a high school student, in various scenes in which her nonconformity causes conflict with other students and school officials. A similarly-themed scene depicts her meeting with music executive L.A. Reid, who tells her that in order to obtain stardom, she will have to change everything about her persona, in order to exhibit a greater resemblance to Britney Spears, despite Pink's insistence that that is not how she sees herself. Yet another scene shows her modeling for the cover of a magazine, irritated at how she is being made up by the lighting technicians, makeup artists and other personnel involved in the shoot. The video then shifts to a scene in which Pink, now in control over her career, is welcomed back to her high school for a concert there.
