I don't think people understand how easy it is to infer that someone who's a female artist or a female in our industry is somehow doing something wrong by wanting love wanting money wanting success women are not allowed to want those things the way that men are allowed to want them are you an emo kid I was actually at the most emo dinner party the other night cuz Brendan Yuri and Sarah his amazing wife like had me over I show up and it's like brandan and Pete wenton sitting next to each other and I just got
to ask them every single question Pete went is probably if I had to pick a favorite Lyricist it would be a tie between him and Lana Del re blank space is a song that's just zingers one after another after another which I definitely learned from listening to Fallout Boy congratulations first and foremost on the success of lover because there's no guarantees even for someone a successful and talented as yourself every time you release music you open it up to the you know to the universe and you hope it's discovered yeah and actually an interesting dynamic
happens between you and your previous work and it it happens as soon as you put out your second record everything you do is a standing ovation on your first record if you're having that breakthrough record and then you put out your second body of work and then you realize that everything you're putting out now is being compared to what they liked about your first record but then you put out the third one and then it's compared to the first two then you put out the fourth one then it's compared to the first three and it
goes on and on and on by the time you're at album seven you are so you have such a strange convoluted relationship with your previous work because you're like damn it all too well was a good song and I knew with this album it was it was it was like something that was almost a return to form like reputation was such an important record for me because I I couldn't stop writing and I and like I needed to write that album and I needed to put out that album and I needed to not explain that
album because another thing about that album was I knew if I didn't an interview about it none of it would be about music and this this entire like lover phase of my life there's been no distraction from the music cuz you're in a place where you're actually telling a very personal story or telling something so personal to you that someone else's opinion be it brilliant or otherwise is could could only Cloud that really yeah and I thankfully work with really wonderful uh collaborators who you know Jack is amazing like when I bring in a song
that I've written 100% some producers will not like nowadays some producers will not produce something that they didn't have a coite on we really haven't figured out a way to compensate the creators and that's something that I'm always going to be very vocal about until I feel like it's fixed I definitely want to when I write a a song 100% I want credit for that and I think that's fair but I also when when people have these policies where they're like we won't do this without this I understand why um but I love right now
you know out there we have amazing creators like hly like hly is an amazing writer and she speaks up for what she cares about and she's very vocal about things and we have these very Fierce women out there it's amazing time it's so good we were just talking about the internet back there in some of our favorite moments you may walk away from that world but you're able to to tap in and use it whenever you want and you do it very effectively um are you into it the internet the only thing I really read
every day is political news oddly there are actual inflections of how I feel politically on this record more so than ever before like you know you need you need to calm down is is the man yeah the man there's a song called Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince see I didn't pick it up on that one it's it's definitely all about politics you've got these these songs that definitely welcome people into your world and yet you're able to keep yourself distant from that scrutiny how do you do that I think after a while you just
realize that it's part of the job you know there's a lot of things that I tell myself when I'm kind of panicking and one of the things that I tell myself is like this is part of it this is normal when was it hardest when was it toughest for you this has happened several times so I can't like you know when I was like 23 and people were just like kind of reducing me to like kind of making slideshows of like my dating life and putting people in there that I'd sat next to at a
party once and deciding that my songwriting was like a trick rather than a skill and a craft kind of it's it's it's a way to take a woman who's doing her job and succeeding at doing her job and making things and it's it's in a way it's it's figuring out how to completely minimize that skill by taking something that everyone you know in their darkest darkest moments loves to do which is to shame and so now when I see this happening I can see a headline about a young artist about a young female artist about
like another breakup and it makes it SP it sends me into a takes you back there to a degree it sends me into a real sad place because I don't want that to keep happening and I don't think people understand how easy it is to infer that someone who's a female artist or a female in our industry is somehow doing something wrong by wanting love wanting money wanting success women are not allowed to want those things the way that men are allowed to want them do you still have blind sides do you still have things
that catch you off guard things that kind of surprise you that you're not prepared for you know every step of my career there's been you know people questioning whether I deserve to be there so I feel like my whole career up until very recently was spent trying to prove myself to those people I'm trying to to prove that I that I belong here that I'm going to work hard enough that I'm going to I'm going to make music that's good enough to to belong here and you know I've had people standing up and saying you
don't you don't deserve to be here either very loudly or loud in headlines or you know comments or whatever but you know that's part part of life new adventures cats yes yes I'm so happy I got to do this I really wanted to work with Tom Hooper I know that he records live and he films and Records your vocals live it's it's such an interesting thing to me and I wanted to see him work I had actually uh done screen tests for Lay Miz and had met him through that process like 2012 really yeah you
went for it yeah I didn't get it do people know that is that out there I mean I think so but it's it was such an amazing experience just doing the screen test and I I was obviously like I'm not going to get this and so basically when I was approached this time it was a straight up offer and then I started going in for rehearsals and they have this behavioral uh studies class called cat school that I was okay and that's where we pause I need to just spend a little time in Behavioral Studies
for cats so basically you go in you you watch these videos of casts you watch them walking you watch them sensing things you learn facts about them anatomically biologically how do they sense things how do they like what's their gaze like what's their what's their like it's amazing have you ever written a song from someone's point of view and played it to them and it's been too close to the Bone you know I remember I wrote a song called 15 for my friend Abigail who is still just my best friend and you know she's been
God she's gone through a lot of like changes in my life and changes in her life and we just still are like this and she um she was my you know sitting next to me in freshman year and we became best friends and few years later I wrote a song called 15 that was about you know not just my life and journey at that age but also hers and I had to you know that was a situation where I played it for her and I was like this is just for you and it's never going
to see the light of day if you don't want it to and she was like no you need to put this out what do you love most about your friends what is the one trait that you really look to you know I now like see resilience as like a major quality in friendship like when your stock is down if they're still wanting to hang out that's like and I know who those people are now it's really fun to know that Selena is one of those people oh she is and by the time we've start to
to to put this out there'll be music it's just I'm so proud of her she's been through so much I've watched so much happen in her life I 100% convinced this is the best thing she's done so far visit our site englishspeech channel.com for exclusive access to video transcripts offline audio English lessons and private classes don't forget to explore our free and new ebooks also subscribe to our Weekly Newsletter for the latest updates links in the description below thanks for your support