Album: Charlie’s Angels (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2019)
Charted: 2 13
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Songfacts®:

  • "Don't Call Me Angel" is the theme song of the 2019 movie Charlie's Angels. The film reboot - written and directed by Elizabeth Banks – features a spy trio who are played by Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska.
  • Ariana Grande is one of the executive producers of the movie's soundtrack along with Savan Kotecha, Ilya Salmanzadeh and Max Martin. She recruited her own "angels" - Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey - to sing the fast-paced pop song.

    Grande and Cyrus dominate most of the track while Del Rey offers a breathy interlude on the bridge.
  • Lyrically, the track is an assertive twist on a love song as the three ladies warn any prospective suitors they aren't sweet, innocent girls.

    Ain't from no Heaven
    Yeah, you heard me right
    Even though you know we fly
    Don't call me angel


    The trio are not denying they are "fly," just that they're not "from heaven."
  • Director Elizabeth Banks told People the six songwriters were inspired by "Independent Women," Destiny's Child's theme song for the 2000 version of the movie. That tune found Beyoncé, Kelly, and Michelle spelling out to men just how little they needed them. Banks said:

    "I feel really grateful that this incredible group of artists took inspiration from these films as well and felt like working together as women, and [it] thematically matched up with the exact movie that we were making."
  • The song's release came a month after Miley Cyrus announced she was splitting from her husband Liam Hemsworth. Listeners went onto social media to share their beliefs that Cyrus shades her ex during her verse.

    Don't call me angel when I get undressed
    You know I, I don't like that, boy
    Uh, I make my money, and I write the checks
    So say my name with a little respect


    Fans were quick to point out that the Hunger Games actor's nickname for the singer was "angel."
  • Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey wrote the song with the soundtrack's co-producers, Savan Kotecha, Ilya Salmanzadeh and Max Martin. Kotecha, Ilya and Martin have co-penned several of Grande's hits, including "No Tears Left to Cry," "God Is A Woman" and "Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored ."
  • The song's music video was directed by frequent Grande collaborator Hannah Lux Davis and filmed in July 2019. The clip features the three pop stars as femme fatale Angels who ransack an opulent mansion. Grande is the mastermind, Cyrus the fighter, and Del Rey the weapons expert. The clip ends with Elizabeth Banks reprising her role as Susan Bosley from the movie.

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