“Sorry” presents itself as a defiant breakup song, a middle-fingered clap-back anthem about having strength and confidence in the midst of an otherwise serious and emotionally tugging breakup. But despite her protestations, she cannot get the object of her scorn off her mind. She cannot stop thinking about him.

The song takes a “sorry, not sorry” attitude in which Beyoncé insists that she isn’t even thinking about her problematic ex anymore. At this point in the album, Beyoncé seems sure she won’t be accepting any apologies any time soon.

MeLo-X, one of the songwriters credited on the track, said that he wrote the lyrics way before Justin Bieber’s song of the same name was released,

It might have been last summer. It was way before that song came out. I mean, it’s funny… But yeah so, that track was kind of like creating a vibe in the studio. We were just working on a lot of stuff and the idea came up pretty simple. It was just some cool keys, drum patterns, and we started putting down vocal ideas and lyric ideas. And throughout the month, ​we added to it and Hit-Boy came in and sprinkled all these different sounds and layers to it and made it come together fully.