In battle, a white flag signals surrender. By stating there will be "No white flag," Dido indicates she will not give up on the relationship. Dido met a lawyer named Bob Page in 1995, and he inspired some songs from her first album, including "Thank You" and "Here With Me." They got engaged, but called off the wedding in 2002. Ultimately, they weren't able to patch things up. Dido married someone else in 2010.
"White Flag" was the lead single from Dido's second album, Life For Rent, released in 2003. The previous few years were quite tumultuous for her not just personally, but also professionally. She's from England, but came to America to launch her career, earning a deal with Arista Records from her demo. Her gentle, introspective songs fit the Lilith Fair aesthetic, but that sound was falling out of favor in 1999 when her debut album No Angel was issued. The album had modest sales (by Arista standards) of about 200,000 copies, but no hits emerged and it looked like she was on the downswing. Then, at the end of 2000, Eminem sampled "Thank You" on his hit "Stan," providing a wellspring of publicity that sent sales of the album soaring. In her native UK, it proved especially popular, selling 3 million copies. "White Flag" kept her momentum going, rising to #2 in the UK and climbing to #18 in America. The Life For Rent album also did well, but by this point Dido had been touring and doing publicity for a solid five years. She got off the road in 2005 and didn't return until 2019, although she did put out albums in 2008 and 2013.
Dido wrote this with Rick Nowels, who also worked with Michelle Branch on her hit with Santana, "The Game Of Love."
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