Suki Waterhouse - Back in Love

Introduction

0:00You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh Hirwe.

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1:44This episode has some explicit language.

Suki Waterhouse

1:48Suki Waterhouse is a singer, songwriter, actress, and model from London. She released her first single in 2016 and her first album, I Can't Let Go, in 2022 on Subpop. You might have seen her in the show Daisy Jones and the Six, which came out in 2023. Since then, she's also had her first child with her partner, Robert Pattinson. And all of that history figured into her new album, Loveland. For this episode, Suki told me about how she made the song Back in Love with her longtime collaborators, producer Jules Apollinaire and songwriter Natalie Findlay.

2:22Back in Love was the first single from her album, but it was the last song that was written for it. I'm Suki Waterhouse. What was going on in your life around the time when you first started working on Back in Love? It was in December. And I kept flying back to London to work with my longtime collaborators, Jules Apollinaire

2:58and Natalie Finlay, who I met when I was like 18, 19. And I was a huge fan of Nat's. She has a project called Finlay. And I got talking to them and that was kind of like how we first met and started making music together. And now we've been doing it for, yeah, longer than over a decade. It's the most amazing thing when you find your tribe. It's hard to explain like how much of a joy it is and how much of like a shorthand we have. And it's like the best thing ever.

3:29It's always such a giggle working with them. It's very kind of like forget about the outside world. A lot of the times we hole up in their kind of studio in East London where they also live like it's an old warehouse that's kind of like all open, their dogs running around. But this song in particular, I was kind of at the end of writing and the album didn't feel quite complete yet. I just knew that there was a song left.

4:00As in you didn't have enough songs for the album? Like you needed more? I definitely didn't need more. Yeah. I think I had like 70 songs for this. But it's just knowing. It's like, you know, when you've given all the blood that you have. And I knew, especially with Nat and Jules, that we hadn't like quite reached that peak yet. So the phrase going around that day was like, if it's not like literally what we think is like a classic, then we're not recording it.

4:30That day that we started writing was actually like not going very well at all. Me and Jules, we had this loop going and he was playing guitar and we had this song called If a Lady Was Your Lover. If a lady was your lover. And it was like. And Nat was just like not having it. And she was like, this is weird.

5:01This sucks. This is not universal. This is like not the thing that we were setting out to do. And just like the day had like really gotten away from us.

5:15Then I had like this. Yeah, something that I just shouldn't have even planned. In the first place. But I had an audition, like a Zoom audition for a TV show. It was absolutely terrible. Like I'm balancing on the couch because the studio is very dark in there. There's like no over lighting. It's all just lamps and everything. And the casting director's like, this is terrible. Like I can't see you. Like you can't do this audition. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. Like it was just like a mess. But when I came back into the room, they'd been like locked away together.

5:48And Nat had been, yeah, I guess she has like a mouth trumpet going.

6:05Jules had got the sitar out and had made this intro. And I walked in and I was like, oh, this feels like the gates of heaven are opening. It's funny, like so much of our work is like trying things and like, yeah, making like voice memos and doing things that like don't end up going anywhere.

6:38Or we kind of just like forget about them or we're just like, yeah, distracted by something or like ordering food or like playing with the dog. And then there's suddenly like a collective energy where we all start like actually kind of like focusing.

6:59That's Jules translating the mouth trumpet melody onto the whir, let's say. That's me. Yeah, that's right. Back in love like came out of my mouth and me and Nat were giggling about it because we were like, maybe we were talking like about TikToks that we'd seen or something.

7:33But I was like, oh, you know, like when like a man fixes a light bulb or something and then you're like, oh, I'm back in love. Or like they mowed the lawn or took out the trash or like something like that. And you're like, wow, you're like, you got your shit down. Like, yes, I've been with Rob for like eight years now. And it's like you're always in love. And then sometimes you just get like, oh, my God, like a huge pang. And you're just like, I'm obsessed. So that was like where the back in love phrase came from. A lot of the times, like, honestly, like if we just get three words, just like a little phrase, you're like, OK, we can build around this.

Songwriting Process

8:13Once that intro came out, the music flowed really easily. Is Jules playing all the instruments or most of the instruments? Jules plays everything.

8:24And I remember like the opening lyrics, like loneliness is a feather bed.

8:32Where did that lyric come from? I like started working when I was like 15. Like I started modeling when I was 15 and definitely like very young. It opened like so many doors for me and like got, you know, opened me up to like so much culture and traveled a lot. It's like you're living your dreams in so many ways. But but there's like a loneliness in that. When you like start doing something that just involves like a lot of travel, you just like you're not a great.

9:03You can be a great friend like over the phone, but you're not there for all the moments and you stop kind of like going out every week with the same group of people and it kind of falls away. And so there's like a isolation in that lyric. I still wanted it to feel glamorous, but it's like being in a beautiful bed like by yourself or feeling by yourself. I was like putting myself in the place of like what's it like when I'm present with myself, which isn't that fucking often.

9:47But I like daydream about sitting by myself in silence.

10:06And there I can like hear the musical references. I think we'd listen to Dusty Springfield, Son of a Preacher and like Primal Scream, Loaded, like 60s, Psychedelic. That was like the musical feeling. Yeah, I feel like that comes through a lot. Has that kind of music been a big part of your musical identity for a long time? Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. I think there's always been this like draw to the 60s.

10:39And I remember when I was like 18, I would like completely dress like a mod. And I was always in like white tights. And I've always, yeah, it sounds like really cringy to say, but I kind of felt like I should have been there. I know that sounds like so cringy. I sound like such a dick.

10:58And what about the end of the verse, the shooting the apple off your head and triggering violence? I think in a lot of this album, I definitely was feeling quite like volatile. You know, you wouldn't really think it's like a post having a baby record, but there's like definitely a lot of like raging postpartum hormones going on. And I feel like, do you know what I mean? I feel like, like in those lines sometimes that were coming out, it's almost like this maternal, like, don't fuck with me kind of thing. And like, there's a kind of like protective rageness.

11:31I feel like there's this part of me that's like this craziness of me that's like been unlocked where like I've always been like the very chill person and like anything goes. And like I was saying, like when I first started working, it was like, that's like a very much an industry where you're like having to be like pleasing and like being pleasing visually. And like, that's like probably stuff that I'm like trying to like overcome still today. But like, yeah, now I feel like I've got like a loaded gun and there's like this thing in my life that I have something to like protect and something to lose now.

12:03It's made me more fierce. Like I'm obsessed with like mother's instinct at the moment. And like, I've just become like more aware to listen to my instincts. That's actually something that's kind of like playing into being an artist, I think actually is like when you're like making your record and choosing the songs and like you make something like a very pure way and like you don't really care what anybody else thinks when you're making it. And then there's like the showing it to people and do the like label like it, do your team like it, what do they think about it?

12:36And like you can get like crushed quite quickly and like if you really believe in it, sometimes you have to like go to like fight for stuff and sometimes you just get tired fighting and you like relent to something and then you like, you're so fucking pissed that you did that, you know. Did that happen at all with this song? So we wrote the chorus and I had written with Nat, I'm losing my lust for life, praying for dark to light.

13:06Just when I thought it would end, I'm back in love again. So like that is kind of like where my head was. I wasn't in the most positive state of mind like while writing it. So I remember like walking with my friend Poppy in Hyde Park the next day and playing her the song and she's like such a good barometer. She's like basically A&R's my whole record. Like my friend, I can just watch her face. And when it got to the chorus, I don't know, like the excitement kind of died a little bit.

13:38And so I remember like going to the studio that day after that walk and I was like, hey, like I think we got to change that because it's not that explosion of joy. But Nat and Jules were like so kind of like happy with how it was. And yeah, then we like kind of argued about it for a while because we had just when I thought it would end. And I felt like that was like weak. Just when I thought it would end, like I was like, oh, that doesn't feel appealing to me. It's not lighting me up. Actually, I'm remembering now that part, like convincing them that we needed to change it.

14:13And then, you know, we like write one line and then we all start getting excited about it. And it's just like one of the coolest things because I think one of us will always have like kind of a strong idea if they really don't feel something. And then it's like kind of battle of the convincing, you know. What did the lyrics end up becoming? I'm loving my loss for life. Turning the dark to the light. Happiness hits me when I'm back in love again. And then like once we got that, it was like, OK, I want to get to even more like what kind of visuals can we have then?

14:48And it was like dancing around like back to jazz on the radio, back to beaches, away we go. That was Nat's line. That's such a Nat line to be able to kind of like back to beaches, away we go. I love that line. And then I remember I was thinking about like when I like walk around with Rob and we like go on walks together, just like late night walks. And when you just take the strange street home, we kind of go like, what about we just go like this way and we go through like an alleyway or something.

15:22And we both like get really excited about going and getting lost on purpose, the enjoyment in there. Oh, I'm loving my loss for life. Turning the dark to light. Happiness hits me when I'm back in love again. Back to jazz on the radio. Back to beaches, away we go. Taking the long way home. Back in love again.

15:53More with Suki Waterhouse after this.

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Second Verse

18:05I feel like the second verse is really different from the first verse. Yeah, it's kind of like the bridge and the second verse, so it has like a whole different melody to it.

18:23Oh, you're swinging to my body in time Pour a little sweet wine You know it's been a hard day's time Pour another sweet wine Nat and Jules had come to Long Pond to Aaron Destner's studio with me for a couple of days, and we had like an amazing couple of days upstate. And Aaron would like have these amazing wines for us every night. So we'd like all been making this like song to play Aaron to say thank you for having us.

18:55And it was like, Aaron Destner, thank you for the good times and the sweet wine. And that's how we get to the sweet wine. And that's, you know, and then we're like, oh, pour another sweet wine. So I'm like laughing at myself. But that was a past like experience, like kind of winding its way into the song. Oh, yeah, that's us clicking our fingers.

19:23Was that Jewel singing? Yeah, the track is playing in the back and he's pour a little sweet wine. And it brings such a smile to my face. And it's such a great example of our process in the studio and why we kind of get along so well musically as well as personally, because like I just I love imperfection. I love bleed. I don't like things sounding so polished. Like I want to hear like actually what's happening in the room. And that's like there's a magic going on in that room.

19:55And there's not like a preciousness between all of us of like, it has to be so perfect. Okay, I have to ask you about this sound.

20:04That's the dog. That is the dog. That is hilarious that you've picked that up because that is such a Jules-ism that he's put the dog in there. It's their dog? Yeah, it's Otto. That's so funny. Their dog is the cutest dog in the world. He's quite crazy as well. And it's like a war between trying to record with things that Otto hasn't eaten, that yeah, that if Otto isn't barking, it's coming back to me now that he put that in there.

20:34I love it. It's like a percussion part. I love that you found that. The original intro was all on sitar, but at some point I was like, ah, I think it's trumpets. So Jules was like layering it with Mellotron. Mellotron.

21:10Until we kind of like later had, you know, real trumpets put in.

21:18Sam Ewans is an amazing brass and horn arranger and he's played the horns. It kind of explodes at the end into this like massive, triumphant outro. I remember just yelling into the microphone like, so back, I'm back. And we were kind of all figuring that out at the end and that was really fun. I feel like this record was like a pull between like,

22:12the person I was and like the new person that's like emerging. But this song I think was about knowing I got through something, feeling like I'd like reconnected with myself. It's like such a huge change having a child and like, yeah, I've been going through things that have felt like very difficult, but I feel like I'm good. Like the future feels like I'm excited about it. So, yeah, I think it was like,

22:44I wanted this song to be like a reclaiming and also joyful.

Song Meaning

22:49And now here's Back in Love by Suki Waterhouse in its entirety. Back in Love by Suki Waterhouse Loneliness is a feather bird

23:26Eyes closed, sitting in silence Sleeping on the couch instead Whole life hanging by a thread Eyes closed, sitting in silence Shoot the apple off my head You shoot the sugar of violence Oh, now you're talking to me I think you know what I need Oh, I'm loving my lust for life

24:01Turning the dark to light Happiness hits me when I'm back with love again Back to jazz on the radio Back to beaches, away we go Taking the long way home Back to love again Oh, you're swinging too hard in time

24:35Pour a little sweet wine You know it's been a hard day's time Pour another sweet wine Don't you love when I'm back in your arms I can't, baby You've been talking my love language, baby Back to me All of the flowers and kisses you sent me See you catching up to me See you catching up fast Now you know how to please me Oh, I'm loving my lust for life

25:10Turning the dark to light Happiness hits me when I'm back in love again Back to jazz on the radio Back to beaches, away we go Taking the long way home Back in love again Back in love again

25:40Back in love again Back in love again I'm back, I'm back I'm back in love again I'm back, I'm back To learn more, visit songexploder.net.

26:16You'll find links to buy or stream Back in Love, and you can watch the music video. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan, Kathleen Smith, and Tiger Biscuit. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, you can subscribe to my newsletter.

26:46You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishikesh Hiraway. Thanks for listening.

27:02Radiotopia.

27:05From PRX.

27:10One of the best podcasts out there is Normal Gossip, and they're back for a new season, Season 10. It's another show from Radiotopia and also from Defector Media. In every episode, they talk to a guest about a piece of gossip from the real world. A story that was sent in by a listener. And then they anonymize it and retell the story to a guest who reacts and gets to say what they would do if they were in the position. It's really, really fun. I've actually been a guest on the show before. And actually, for the new season, they have a new theme song, which I made.

27:42And also, this season, they're doing video. So, if you like to watch and listen, you can find the episodes on YouTube. New episodes of Normal Gossip come out every Wednesday, all summer long.