00:04It's a very personal story that I've never spoken about.
00:08Can I explain what these lyrics mean?
00:10No, you're catching me out now.
00:16Shake off all your burdens.
00:18Shame's no friend of mine.
00:20This is from To Be Free,
00:23which is a song that I released a few months ago.
00:30I actually wrote this, like, I'd say a couple of weeks after I changed my pronouns.
00:37And it's just a beautiful moment with my dear friend Simon Aldred,
00:42where we sat down and we captured the feeling of freedom.
00:46I felt free and I felt like I was getting older
00:50and I was shaking off the issues that I'd had when I was a kid.
00:54Like, your 20s are hard.
00:56I reached a place about three, four years ago
00:59where I just felt good in my skin.
01:02And the feeling was just so magical and so good.
01:07And so I wanted to document that moment.
01:09And To Be Free is that.
01:11And it really is about sharing that feeling, you know, of saying,
01:15I feel good.
01:17This is round the corner for you, too, if you want it to be.
01:22Oh, I have loved you for many years.
01:26Maybe I'm just not enough.
01:28It's actually, it's sad.
01:31It takes me back to that song.
01:36Oh, my God.
01:37Oh, sorry.
01:38This song is I'm Not The Only One.
01:41I have loved you for many years.
01:45It's one of my favourite songs I've ever written, actually.
01:47And this song was about a guy I was in love with.
01:52We never, like, hooked up or anything.
01:55It was purely unrequired.
01:58But he was actually, like, married.
02:01And I wrote that song from the perspective of his partner.
02:07When I hear about the pain and the heartbreak that women can experience,
02:13it just, it breaks my heart.
02:15So a lot of my songs, actually, I write from stories that I hear from incredible women.
02:21So that's one of them.
02:23Now I've got you in my space, I won't let go of you.
02:27This is a lyric from Latch.
02:29And this just brings back beautiful, warm memories.
02:33This song broke me as an artist.
02:36Now I've got you in my space, I won't let go again.
02:42When I wrote this song, I'll never forget playing it.
02:45My mum was sat in the bar with some friends having a drink and I was working a shift.
02:49And I'll never forget playing this song to my mum for the first time in the bar.
02:52And she just freaked out.
02:54And then, like, three months later, it was on the radio.
02:57And I was working a bar shift, like, cleaning the bar and serving people.
03:02And my song was on the radio.
03:06Oh, my God. Dirty, dirty boy.
03:08You know, everyone is talking on the scene.
03:10I sound so British when I say that. Dirty, dirty.
03:13Um, I, this is from Unholy.
03:16It's kind of like the, um, the over 18 version of I'm Not The Only One, I guess.
03:21Dirty, dirty boy.
03:23You know everyone is talking on the scene.
03:27But this is me, as a queer person, kind of coming to the defense of a girlfriend that's being cheated on and kind of calling out the guy.
03:38I see me and Kim as, like, um, queer Bonnie and Clyde on this song.
03:42Just talking about Unholy, it just brings back so many images of inflatable suits.
03:47And being hoisted in corsets.
03:50Being absolutely fat and shattered on tour.
03:53And just covered in glitter and sweating and having the best time ever.
04:01I'm speeding up my heartbeat's dancing alone.
04:04This is from, uh, Promises.
04:12When you write in the studio with people, you're so used to just walking into rooms and there's, there's an engineer and there's, um, loads of different people in the room helping plug things in and everything.
04:21But it was just Calvin.
04:23And it was just Jesse sitting there.
04:24And Calvin does everything by himself.
04:26And I'd never met Jesse Reyes.
04:29Little did I know that the day we wrote that was the beginning of a life changing relationship.
04:35I don't even think we had the beat, actually.
04:37I think, I remember Jesse just start going, are you joking now?
04:41Like that.
04:42And I was like, what the fuck?
04:43And then we just started, and then we started writing.
04:45And then I, I, um, attacked the chorus melody when we were in the booth.
04:49That song became such an important moment for me.
04:52I just had a breakup.
04:53I was on tour.
04:54I did like 130 day tour.
04:57That song was a blessing at a time when I needed it.
05:00It's nothing better than like, like a good dance pop song when you're feeling a bit heartbroken.
05:05I'm pretty clear that I'm not over you.
05:12Why am I blank away?
05:13I can hear it.
05:14Uh, oh, dance with a stranger.
05:18It's pretty clear that I'm not over you.
05:22I remember I went out in LA one night.
05:25Again, it was after the same breakup around Promises.
05:27And I went out in LA and I got with a guy in the club.
05:31I just remember the next day, I was just like, oh, it's just, it's not, it's not, it's not him.
05:38And all I wanted was my ex.
05:41And it was just such a painful time.
05:43I was so heartbroken.
05:44It's my first real queer heartbreak.
05:46And then fate happened.
05:48We're in the studio.
05:49We finished the song.
05:50And then Normani walks into the studio because she's there to meet Stargate.
05:55And she recorded it on the day.
05:57I love that song so much.
05:58I find it smooth.
05:59And I love singing it.
06:02Why am I so emotional?
06:05No, it's not a good look.
06:07Gain some self-control.
06:08This is from Stay With Me.
06:10And it just, this always takes me back to just being in London and being 21 years old and just queer and confused.
06:19Why am I so emotional?
06:24No, it's not a good look.
06:26Gain some self-control.
06:28I didn't have a unit of gay friends around me and the queer friends I had were trying to figure out their stuff.
06:37And so I just like, I would go out by myself a lot and Stay With Me is such a, it's a song that everyone can relate to.
06:47And, but it is definitely a queer feeling, a feeling that comes from a queer experience and the loneliness I was trying to capture.
06:57A lot of it was because I hadn't found my people.
06:59I hadn't had an experience with a man where he'd wanted to be with me and I was just so desperate for that.
07:06I'm really proud that I got to capture that in Stay With Me.
07:09And I think that even now when I sing it, I find it healing to sing that song.
07:14The moon and the stars are nothing without you.
07:19This is from Lay Me Down.
07:22The moon and the stars are nothing without you.
07:26This song is actually about my grandma who died a few years previous to me writing Lay Me Down.
07:33And it's quite a dark, not dark, it's just quite a sad, deep song Lay Me Down.
07:40It's basically saying to, it's from the perspective of my grandma saying that she wants to lay down next to her husband who died 10 years before with him.
07:51So it's very, very, very, very dark and deep, but it's become an everlasting love song.
07:59And I'm just so proud of that song.
08:02I hate it when you hiss and preach about your new messiah cause your theories catch fire.
08:09Oh my God.
08:11La la la.
08:14I mean, I, this song is, it's a wild thing.
08:18It keeps coming back to like online and stuff and people love it.
08:22I hate it when you hiss and preach about your new messiah cause your theories catch fire.
08:31Look, the song is really, really fun and I'm always proud of it.
08:34But I was so young and I like, sometimes the lyrics, I'm like, oh my God.
08:39Like, it's like looking back at an outfit of you when you're like 19 and being like, why did I wear that?
08:45Sometimes I, I have moments where I'm like, why did I say that?
08:48Can I explain what these lyrics mean?
08:50No, you're catching me out now.
08:51The friend that I was talking about was in the song was very patronizing to me.
09:00They were, they were my age.
09:03We both had similar types of careers going on.
09:07And I felt like there was, I felt patronized at times and felt like their theories on things didn't make sense and caught fire at times.
09:25The person who this is about, they just had different beliefs about music than I did.
09:32It's very personal story that I've never spoken about, but it does make sense to me.
09:38Okay.
09:40Baby, we don't stand a chance.
09:43It's sad, but it's true.
09:45This is from Two Good Goodbyes.
09:47Baby, we don't stand a chance.
09:49It's sad, but it's true.
09:52This was about a guy that I had a relationship with, a very, very short relationship with.
10:00During, after the success of my first record, when I wrote this song, I really, really, like, resented him.
10:07Because he just, he, there was just drama.
10:12Years afterwards, we actually met up again and he's just such a beautiful, lovely person.
10:17And at this point, I was just used to being heartbroken and used to relationships not working out.
10:25So when, when they wouldn't work out, I was just like, it's like, I'm, I'm, I know how to deal with this now a little bit more.
10:35Oh my God.
10:36When I signed my deal, I felt pressure from my favorite song.
10:40It's not money in my mind.
10:43Oh gosh.
10:44When I signed my deal, I felt pressure.
10:48It makes me cringe sometimes, this song, but I'm also a big advocate and supporter of cringing.
10:55I think that we all need to cringe more.
10:57It's just me as a kid being flung around by my label to all different people to write with and just like being so overwhelmed.
11:06And, you know, you sit in a room with certain writers and they just love music so much and it feels so pure.
11:14And they're there to just write music with you.
11:16And then, then you go into a room with some people who they just want to make money off of you.
11:21And you can really feel that in certain rooms.
11:24And it just really, really upset me.
11:26And so I went into the studio with Two Inch Punch, Ben, a friend of mine who's so wonderful and talented and incredible.
11:35And we got to express that on that day and it was beautifully fun and carefree.
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