Songfacts®:

• "Bad Life" is an unlikely collaboration between Norwegian pop star Sigrid and British hardcore rock outfit Bring Me The Horizon. It originated as a song written by the band's vocalist Oli Sykes and keyboardist Jordan Fish during sessions for their seventh album. They loved its message but didn't feel it fit with the record's sound.
  
  During a chance meeting between Jordan Fish and Sigrid backstage at Reading and Leeds Festival, they realized they were both fans of each other's music. It occurred to Fish that "Bad Life" could be a perfect vehicle for Sigrid, so he asked the Norwegian singer if she'd like to record the rock ballad with them. She agreed and then asked Sykes to duet with her on the song.
• Sigrid and Bring Me The Horizon met up at a London studio a fortnight after Reading to record the song. "It was such a fun session," the "Don't Kill My Vibe" singer told BBC Radio 1's Clara Amfo. "It was really fun to see both our worlds collide and there's similarities in like melodies and vision. And we both love a lot of the same music as well. Lyrically, we come from maybe more different worlds, but it was really fun to get to meet me halfway there. It's cool."
• The teary anthemic ballad finds Oli Sykes and Sigrid singing of having a rough time. They feel the world is on their shoulders and will never stop feeling sad. They take some comfort with the thought that it's "just a bad day, not a bad life."
• Sykes and Fish originally wrote "Bad Life" remotely during lockdown. The hard-working health workers during the COVID pandemic were on Sykes' mind when he wrote the lyrics:
  
  Like a band-aid on a bleeding heart, I fake a smile and fall apart
  And no one ever knows I'm a wreck
• Sigrid recorded the song for her How to Let Go album, releasing it as its fourth single on April 21, 2022.
• Rock producers Zakk Cervini (Halsey and Yungblud's "11 Minutes," All Time Low's "Monsters") and Evil Twin (Bring Me The Horizon's "DiE4u," Tom Morello's "Let's Get The Party Statted") helmed the song. "Bad Life" is the only How to Let Go track not produced by Sylvester Willy "Sly" Sivertsen.
• Director Raja Verdi (Holly Humberstone, Celeste) filmed the song's music video. "The concept for this one shot film was to lean into the themes of having to get through the bad to eventually reach the other side," he said. "Life can certainly feel like a roller coaster sometimes."