“Focus” is all about ignoring the haters and looking for the good in all of us. It was the first single from Ariana Grande’s third album Dangerous Woman, but was later scrapped in favor of the title track and didn’t appear on the US version of the album (though it did make the Japanese and Target deluxe editions).

Ariana dropped a series of hints prior to the release, including a song snippet on Instagram and teasers on Twitter. Grande uploaded a vlog entitled “Focus” to her YouTube channel Honeymoon Diaries three weeks before the song’s release that spoke about its meaning.

I’m not asking to be the center of attention. […] I literally mean “focus on me,” on what I’m all about and what I believe in. The more we focus on each other, as people and not on what we look like, not what we’re wearing, our gender, our hairstyle, our sexuality, the color of our skin, but focus on each other on a soul level. The more we realize how much we have in common, the more we listen to each other, the more one we become.