"The Lonely" is a song by American singer-songwriter Christina Perri. The song was first released to iTunes on March 29, 2011, the same day that its accompanying lyric video premiered on Teen Vogue. The video was uploaded onto her official YouTube account the following day. The song is included on Perri's debut album, Lovestrong. It was released as the first promotional single of the album.

The song draws inspiration from Perri's life, written about a relationship she had with the emotion of being lonely. Many critics found themselves divided over the song. Most of them positively reviewed the song's chilling tone and powerful lyrics, but many noted that "The Lonely" didn't compare to Perri's lead single, "Jar of Hearts".

"The Lonely" was co-written by Christina Perri and David Hodges. One month prior to the release of Lovestrong, Perri revealed that three promotional singles were set to be released via iTunes leading up to the album's release. The first of these was "The Lonely" on March 29, 2011. The two other promotional singles were "Penguin" and "Tragedy". Perri released an official karaoke version of the song onto iTunes on April 5, 2011.

Perri wrote "The Lonely" in August 2010 in her driveway at two o'clock in the morning after coming back from a dinner event. She says that when she pulled into her driveway, she realized how alone she was and "cried her eyes out" while writing the song. Perri wrote the song about her relationship with "nobody or with this ghost of somebody". "The Lonely" was intended to be a personification of loneliness - "the saddest, quietest, most painful kind." While revealing the track to Teen Vogue, Perri gave more insight into the song's message, saying "It's lonely personified. It’s my relationship with no one, and I’m very happy I kept it superdramatic and simple at the same time. It’s me, a piano, plus a nineteen-piece orchestra." "The Lonely" places different periods and events in Perri's past on a "very clear timeline".

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