Charli xcx and Lorde spill on how the iconic ‘Girl, so confusing’ remix came to be

Charli xcx’s BRAT was already the album of the summer, even before her remix of “Girl, so confusing” with Lorde took over the internet. Hearing two music icons work out their feud in real time — on a track that’s an undeniable bop, no less — is a pop culture moment for the ages. Now, in a new interview with Billboard, Charli and Lorde revealed the epic story of how the song came to be.

The saga began when Charli was gearing up to release BRAT and decided to warn Lorde that the album would feature a song about her.

“I had to go through the process of telling her that this song is about her and her being OK with that first,” Charli explained. “I was trying to meet up with her for almost a year, and we kept having this weird, like, we were [going to], then we wouldn’t. It spoke to the narrative of the song itself. In the end, it didn’t work out.”

Given that the original version of “Girl, so confusing” included lyrics like “Sometimes I think you might hate me, sometimes I think I might hate you” and “Can’t tell if you wanna see me falling over and failing,” a heads-up was more than warranted. But Lorde’s reaction caught Charli by surprise.

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“The day before the record came out, I left her a voice note. [Lorde] replied straight away and was like, ‘Oh, my God, I had no idea you felt this way. I’m so sorry,’” Charli recalled. “Then was like, ‘You know, maybe I should be on a version of the song.’ I didn’t even ask her. She brought it up.”

Why did Lorde have the idea to do the remix? It was a “two-part thing of both deep empathy for my friend and this feeling of ‘Man, I’ve been misunderstood, and I really want to make it right,’” Lorde said.

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Within just three days, Lorde had sent Charli her verse — a verse, Lorde said, that included things she’d never said before.

“When I was writing this verse, I was saying these things to her for the first time,” Lorde said. “There was such a rawness and an immediacy to what I was saying. I love that we truly did work it out on the remix. There’s something very BRAT about that, something very meta and modern. Only Charli could make that happen. She had opened up a channel between us, and it made me say things that I had never said. I was articulating things I’d never said or maybe even things I’ve never even heard said. This whole thing has been such a huge honor.”

Lorde also took the chance to praise Charli for the pop star and changemaker she’s always been.

“Charli’s been doing this,” she said. “She’s been Charli this whole time. She’s just put one foot in front of the other. Learned something from every project. Michelangelo apparently once said, ‘I’m just going to carve away all that is not David,’ and I feel that that’s what we are getting to witness in real time: Charli saying to herself, ‘I’m going to carve away all that is not Charli.’ It’s very, very big and special, powerful, fun, sick work that she does.”

The interview revealed more about Charli’s BRAT era, including that more remixes are on the way. When they’ll arrive or what the remixes will be is still anyone’s guess, but until then, we’ll keep ‘Girl, so confusing’ on repeat.