It was important for me to keep the album unapologetic and blunt, with lyrics addressing hard to swallow subjects such as self-harm, gun violence and abusive relationships in a real way – like something I’d write in a diary. I was inspired a lot by 1950s era love songs, especially those that mostly painted an image of sad lonely women in a patriarchal society. Can’t Keep My Hands Off You and He Loves Me are songs written about mental and physical abuse within a relationship where the woman is unaware that she is being mistreated. Most lyrics I write are from my own experiences but not all of them, the ones that aren’t my own experiences are experiences of my friends and fans who’ve written to me about mental health and relationships. Kids in my generation feel voiceless in a world that is too busy and chaotic to listen to them.
I decided to self-produce the rest of the album after recording three tracks (He Wanted More, Can’t Keep My Hands Off You, Monsters) with a producer (Nathan Bailey), one of which (He Wanted More) I remixed in the end to fit better with the raw sound I had in my head for the entire record. I finished recording the whole thing in less than a month, spending day and night sat in the dark recording each instrument myself, writing lyrics as I went along. I wrote both Naturally Born Bad and What About The Kids in one day just singing over drum loops. I wanted to capture a fragile realness to the recordings with no autotune or overly processed pop effects, with all acoustic tracks (Miss American Perfect Body, Rock N Roll Radio, Oh Na Na Na, Teddy) recorded in one take straight through, capturing every creak of the chair and bum note on the acoustic.