“Tie That Binds” has Drake getting in his feels, a theme he teased in the album note he shared on Apple Music. “I know everyone that tells me they love me doesn’t love me all the time,” it read, in part, per Pitchfork. “I didn’t get here being blind.”
But, while Drake might realize this, at the end of “Tie That Binds,” he repeats a line that expresses a desperate need to be loved. “Please, don’t leave me / You know I need you, you know I need you, yeah,” he croons, per Genius. He’s singing to a lover, and he’s so smitten with her that he wants to make her Mrs. Aubrey Drake Graham. “I never wanna see you ever leave,” he tells her. “Maybe I’ll take you to my family / Change your name.” There also seems to be a reference to the “’til death do us part” marital vow, but Drake wants their love to continue into the afterlife. He begs, “Hold me close as you can ’til we’re ghost / It’s a promise, ’til we’re ghost.”
Interestingly, the music video for “Falling Back” features a wedding. However, Drake marries 23 brides, so that haunting would look more like the aftermath of a season of “The Bachelor” where proposals were handed out instead of roses. Drake isn’t married in real life, but on “The Shop,” he did confess that he once wanted to settle down with Rihanna.