Songfacts®:

• Beach Bunny began as a bedroom-based solo project for singer Lili Trifilio in 2015 when she recorded a song titled "6 Weeks." She expanded the project to a full four-piece band in 2017 and Beach Bunny dropped their fourth self-released EP, Prom Queen, the following year. The record earned them a contract with Mom + Pop after its title track went viral on TikTok. "Cloud 9" is the closing track from their debut album, Honeymoon.
• This joyful surf-pop song finds a loved-up Lili Trifilio feeling like she's on "Cloud Nine."
  
  But when he loves me, I feel like I'm floating
  When he calls me pretty, I feel like somebody
  
  Trifilio described this to Apple Music as "a crush song." She added it's about "having feelings for someone and it's just kind of unapologetic and not overly analytical. Like, 'This is how I feel when things are good.'"
• The song title does not appear in the lyric, but it aptly describes Trifilio's ecstasy when she's with her lover. The expression "Cloud Nine," meaning elated, derives from terminology used by the US Weather bureau. Clouds are divided into classes, and Cloud Nine was originally the "cumulonimbus," listed as type number nine in the International Cloud Atlas of 1896. Reaching heights of 45,000 ft (13,700 metres), it is also the fluffiest and most comfortable looking of the clouds. A good metaphor for floating carefree, high above the Earth.
• Many of the Honeymoon tracks have the message of, "I love you, but…" However, Trifilio wanted to end the record with a no-strings-attached gushy love song. She told Apple Music, "I don't want people to leave the album crying."
• This became Beach Bunny's first chart hit after it went viral on TikTok a year after the release of Honeymoon.
• Trifilio has been a fan of Tegan and Sara since high school, and was thrilled when the Canadian duo agreed to jump on the remix. The collab was partially inspired by fans who had been covering the song on TikTok with different pronouns, so Tegan and Sara's verse finds them changing some pronouns to she/her and they/them. "It made sense to do an inclusive version," Trifilio told Billboard.