Promises, Promises (Incubus song)
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2015}}
{{Infobox song
| name = Promises, Promises
| cover = Promisespromisescover.jpg
| alt =
| type = single
| artist = Incubus
| album = If Not Now, When?
| B-side = Rebel Girls
| released = {{Start date|2011|5|31|df=yes}}
| recorded = 2010–2011
| studio =
| venue =
| genre = {{hlist|Piano rock|pop rock}}
| length = {{Duration|m=4|s=26}}
| label = {{hlist|Epic}}
| writer = Incubus
| producer = Brendan O'Brien
| prev_title = Adolescents
| prev_year = 2011
| next_title = Absolution Calling
| next_year = 2015
| misc = {{External music video|{{YouTube|yExPBSDnbU8|"Promises, Promises"}}}}
}}
"Promises, Promises" is the second single released by the American alternative rock band, Incubus from their seventh studio album, If Not Now, When?{{cite web| url={{BillboardURLbyName|artist=incubus|chart=Alternative Songs}} | title=Incubus Album & Song Chart History: Alternative Songs | magazine=Billboard | accessdate=2011-04-04}} The single was released in 2011.
Song meaning
According to Incubus lead vocalist, Brandon Boyd: "Promises, Promises, is a story about a girl and a guy – go figure – and the girl has built up so much armor around herself with the things that she knows how to do...And so, I used these metaphors in the song of, like, magic, like she's an illusionist, so she creates these illusions around her...And she's gotten so good at it that she meets somebody who potentially could be someone that could help her break through those illusions and those walls, she can't really recognize that he could be the real thing, or they could be the real thing, so she's asking him for one thing: 'Don't make me any promises."{{cite web|url=http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1665355/incubus-if-not-now-when.jhtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611001809/http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1665355/incubus-if-not-now-when.jhtml |url-status=dead |archive-date=11 June 2011 |title=Incubus 'Unpack' From Hiatus With 'Promises, Promises' – Music, Celebrity, Artist News |publisher=MTV |date=2011-06-07 |accessdate=2012-03-24}}
Track listing
;Promotional Single
- "Promises, Promises" (Album Version)
- "Promises, Promises" (Album Version)
- "Rebel Girls"
Chart performance
"Promises, Promises" peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart and No. 24 on the Billboard Rock Songs chart.