Bad Blood
by Nao

Album: For All We Know (2017)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Nao is an English singer-songwriter who started out as a backing singer for Kwabs and Jarvis Cocker. She also was a featured vocalist on "Superego," a track from Disclosure's UK #1 album Caracal.
  • This song is the lead single from her debut album For All We Know. In it, Nao relates a dissolving childhood friendship. "Logically, I understand why it happened, but my heart… I still love her," Nao explained to Genius. "She's my friend. So, I guess I have a little bit of heartbreak over that friendship and it's kind of like grieving it. Honestly, it sounds so much deeper than it was. We all have these best friends when we were younger. You have about 40 in a day. When you do lose a friend or something, you do mourn that person."
  • The song originated when Nao was on a boat in India taking some time out. "I just started writing a poem, basically, which was the beginning of 'Bad Blood," she said. "When I got back to London, I put it to some piano chords and that's how the beginning of that song became."
  • Nao expanded on the reasons why their friendship ended:

    "When you're in your early teens and you're doing crazy stuff, you've found this little piece of independence, and you're just like running away with it. I used to have this best friend and we were stuck to the hip. We used to dream about when we were older. Like, 'Are we going to live in London? Are we going to have apartments with our boyfriends together?' And you create all these stories, because you're still growing and you have a future.

    But as you're growing, as a teenager, you take different journeys and you take different paths as well. And that's what happened between me and her. We grew apart and took different journeys. That's the bad blood. We didn't have a cat fight or anything. It was just growing and going on our different journeys, and I guess it's questioning what happened between us."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Dave Alvin - "4th Of July"

Dave Alvin - "4th Of July"They're Playing My Song

When Dave recorded the first version of the song with his group the Blasters, producer Nick Lowe gave him some life-changing advice.

Incongruent Opening Acts

Incongruent Opening ActsSong Writing

Here's what happens when an opening act is really out of place with the headliner, like when Beastie Boys opened for Madonna.

Tanita Tikaram

Tanita TikaramSongwriter Interviews

When she released her first album in 1988, Tanita became a UK singing sensation at age 19. She talks about her darkly sensual voice and quirky songwriting style.

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.

Metallica

MetallicaFact or Fiction

Beef with Bon Jovi? An unfortunate Spandex period? See if you can spot the true stories in this Metallica version of Fact or Fiction.

Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear: Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys in Songs

Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear: Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys in SongsSong Writing

Elvis, Little Richard and Cheryl Cole have all sung about Teddy Bears, but there is also a terrifying Teddy song from 1932 and a touching trucker Teddy tune from 1976.