Don't Bother

By the time she wrote this song, Shakira had vastly improved her writing skills in English (although there are some curious turns of phrase: "She's the greatest cook and she's fat free"). The song tells the story of Shakira not wanting forgiveness from her ex, who left her to marry another. She tells him not to bother if he hurt her feelings, because she will not be crying for him. Instead, she will move on with her own life.

While promoting Oral Fixation Vol. 2, Shakira spoke with Gavin Martin about the challenges of writing in English, and how her skills evolved since the release of her first English-language album, 2001's Laundry Service: "When I wrote my first English songs, I was standing in front of this huge challenge of trying to maintain my own style and aesthetics in the way I wrote lyrics. Stylistically, I tried to defend what I represented for so long in the Hispanic world, but it was a struggle because my command of the English language was very limited back then. But this time, it's been so much more of a natural process, more spontaneous. I found myself writing in English without even planning or thinking about it. With this album, lyrically, it's more representative of the way I write in Spanish, so it's much closer to my true style. It was an intellectual challenge to me to build metaphors and construct ideas, while taking into consideration the grammar. Because every language offer you different resources: There are things I can say in Spanish I can never say in English. But Bob Dylan, he's the master, so I tried to understand his words."

"I think 'Don't Bother' has a lot of pain in it as a song, but also a lot of humor and sarcasm," Shakira told Songwriter Universe. "Yes, it is a way of exorcising all of these feelings, a form of catharsis, getting rid of all of those emotions that torture us women at some point in our lives."