Perrie Edwards says it was important that she tweaked the song Ed Sheeran sent her because she gets the “ick” when artists are just in the writing credits of their songs for “the craic”.
The 33-year-old Grammy winner sent the Little Mix star the track, ‘Forget About Us’, that has been chosen as her debut solo single, but she has explained why she had to re-write it so it was “more me” and she could take “full ownership” of it, which the ‘Bad Habits’ hitmaker was “totally cool with”.
Speaking to NME for their In Conversation series, Perrie – who has dropped her surname for her solo music – said: “So, Ed sent me the song and at the time, the lyrics and concept were very direct to what it was about. And I rang him and was like, ‘Would you mind if I just tweaked little bits? I’m not going to just be on the writing credits for the craic because that gives me the ick, I hate when people do that. I don’t want to take away [the fact] you produced and wrote this song [and] sent it to me. I just want to tweak it lyrically so it’s more me and where I’m at in my life now.’
“And he was totally cool with it, he was so supportive. He was like, ‘I want you to take full ownership in it – whatever you’re not comfortable with, change it, and we’ll work on it from there.’ So I did a session on Zoom and we kind of got it to where it is now. I’m really happy.”
Funnily enough, the 30-year-old pop star admitted that when she first signed with her record label, Columbia Records, she confessed to her team that she didn’t feel confident enough to write her own music.
She explained: “I was just so insecure, I think, I was just so shy. And it’s really a drastic change when you go from being in a girl-group and having your girls constantly with you holding your hand – I was literally the baby [of the group]. And it can be quite overwhelming when there’s loads of people in a room and you’re supposed to be talking about your feelings and your emotions and what you want to put in a song.
“I sat down with my label at the start and I was like, ‘Guys, I don’t want to write anything. I just want to be sent songs. I just want to sing them.’ Like, I remember watching the Whitney movie [I Wanna Dance with Somebody] and she would sit in the office [with a pile of demos] and say, ‘I like that, I don’t like that.’ That’s how I imagined my music career going. But then they were like, ‘Why don’t you just try some sessions with friends and people you’ve worked with in the past that make you feel comfortable?’ Like Jin Jin – I’ve known her forever and would never feel judged by her in the room.
“So the more I did sessions, the more I became confident [and] the more I was writing down lyric and concept ideas. And then I started taking the reins a bit more and it just kind of spiralled from there. There’s only a handful of songs on my album I haven’t either co-written or written so I’m very proud of [going] from one extreme to the other.”
‘Forget About Us’ is released on April 12.