I just felt like people weren't seeing the side of me
where I would be going out dancing
and being fem and listening to cheesy music.
It's a genuine passion of mine to listen
to cheesy pop music.
When I wrote this song, the songs actually,
I was pretending to be a really rich woman
who had been left by her husband in her mansion.
And he'd taken all of her diamonds and,
and all of her beautiful things.
And she was just left alone in a wedding dress,
drinking wine, singing cheesy pop songs.
And that's kind of what I set out to do.
Starting to do those pop sessions that I was doing,
you know, with the Max Martin camp
and with some of those incredible pop writers,
I never knew what the process was gonna be like,
but it was just as organic as any other process.
You know, we went into a live room,
we sat down around a piano and we wrote the song.
I think for all of us,
we were probably thinking different things.
But I had nothing but fun with this song,
with the lyrics, with the meaning behind it,
the whole vibe of it, I was just having a laugh.
That lyric kind of touches on when you're in a relationship
and someone gives you presents.
And if you make things or leave notes for someone,
all these little things.
When the relationship ends the meaning of these things,
they almost disappear.
And for me, I'm not the type of person
who holds onto things.
I'm a drama queen.
So like, I'll burn it
and I'll just smash it up and get rid of it,
just to get that person out of my skin.
In my head, I was just imagining being in this large room.
And I remember in my head,
I was imagining all of the pictures
and the portraits there was just left
with the marks on the walls.
And there was nothing left and everything had been taken.
It's more, also a metaphor in a way for your heart.
It's like you've taken it all and you've left the one thing
that really loved you,
you've left the one thing that really mattered,
the one thing that you couldn't buy.
The best way to kill someone is to kill them with kindness.
So I've always done that.
I won't go, when they go low, you go high, right?
I've never really done what I've done for money.
I've done it for the love of music and,
and the things I've had to sell.
And the things I've had
to sacrifice over the last eight years
when it comes to fame, have felt quite intense at times.
So I think that's always like a, "You go for it.
You know, you, you reach for the stars.
I did and got burnt," you know,
I think that's kind of where I'm coming from.
It's like this diva within me that comes out,
this sassiness is like, you will never see that from me.
The only way you're ever gonna see,
or hear my heart breaking is through music.
You'll never actually hear that in person.
I'll never give you the benefit of the doubt
of you seeing that.
And it says, "You're never gonna move in dark ways,"
you know that to me, that line I loved
because that line was me saying,
you know, I'm not scared of darkness.
I'm not scared of getting into my feelings
and getting really sad
because sadness to me is part of my life.
I love this line because when you listen to it,
it sounds like you're saying, "Can't breathe,"
and people get mixed up with it.
And the way that I sing it is like,
"When you're not here, I can't breathe,"
It's like, you're, it's like, you're saying I can't breathe.
But the actual lyric is,
"When you're in here I can breathe,"
which I think is beautiful.
I think this is when the dance element of it came into me.
Like, when we were in the room
and we were vibing to it,
it was like shake it off.
It was imagining everyone on the dance floor,
just exercising, getting rid of that, that whole thing.
I mean, with this whole album, I mean,
the album is quite deep and sad at times,
but for me, the studio became this place of fun and play,
and it didn't become this, you know,
this heavy-duty therapy session,
which my last two albums
and probably the rest of my albums will be like,
but this was a relief, you know,
it was a relief to, oh, okay,
we can sing sad songs, but we can also we can,
they can be light and they can be a bit fluffy
and they could be played in really,
you know, tragic gay bars.
The person I'm talking about,
it's not necessarily personal experience,
maybe touches of it within there,
but you're talking about the bad guy
and the guy that's not putting your heart
and your needs first.
And I've always been attracted to that.
I think down to the lack of work I've done on myself,
the insecurities that I've brought
with me from my childhood,
you know, it all comes into play
and also, you know, unrequited love
and stuff has been a theme of my life grow,
you know, so far. I think within this song,
it's just a moment of like beating myself up a bit,
which I'd like to showcase
because I do beat myself up a bit.
And I just think it's honest and I'm an honest person,
so I'm not constantly like going,
"Oh, we're gonna be all right," you know.
There's times where I'm like, "No, this is not cool.
I keep doing this.
Why? I need to change my patterns."
With this song,
it was just in the booth singing, start from finish.
And I think hopefully people can pick up on that
because I become, my stamina grows throughout the song.
You know, that first chorus is quite hard song to sing
'cause it's quite fast and I'm quite lazy singer.
So I love it when someone just presses a piano chord
and I can just sing for hours and then they keep up with me.
But with this song, it's very like,
you have to stick with it.
So I think you can hear that in my voice, basically,
I'm just singing out more and more and more,
which I love because it adds to the whole exorcism
of this whole tune is that you're just releasing, releasing,
releasing until the middle eight with the, "Wahoo,"
That's more like to me, especially in the video
with the rain and everything.
I wanted that to be a moment of like, can I swear on this?
I wanted it to be a moment of like, "Fuck you,"
like, "Fuck you. I'm good.
You may have taken the diamonds,
but I'm in a mansion and I'm in a wedding dress
and I've had life experiences.
And I know never to date someone like you again."
I think I've learned in the last few years
that people, myself included,
sometimes we fall in love with the idea of someone
and not the actual person.
Yeah, I'm looking for that real love now.