Don't Forget

Album: Masochism (2022)
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Songfacts®:

  • There's a fire on your street
    Terrorized the whole community
    Little troubled girl, you see
    Burning down your house of certainty


    Sky Ferreira released her debut single "One" at age 17. She now feels people took advantage of her being a naïve teenager who didn't know how to read contracts. Here, she sings of feeling muzzled and manipulated. "It's not that I wanted to burn people's houses on fire or something; it is a little more symbolic," she told Vulture. "It's about being put in these situations for a long time. It's a bit of freeing myself, but not in the most conventional way. Because I don't feel free, necessarily."

    Ferreira added she's not trying to portray herself as a victim of the cutthroat entertainment industry. "I'm not trying to throw everyone under the bus yet," she said. "Because that's the thing: How do I say what I've been going through without having to become a victim to it or it becoming some narrative? Then my whole record becomes that. In my mind it's like, 'You don't get to do that to me.'"
  • Ferreira released "Don't Forget" on May 25, 2022 as her first single since dropping "Downhill Lullaby" in 2019. The two songs are entirely different. While "Downhill Lullaby" is dramatic and string-laden, "Don't Forget" is a lush, stadium-ready pop anthem with '80s-inspired synths. "The song's actually a weird song; the chorus is weird," admitted Ferreira of "Don't Forget." "People who heard it were like, 'Why isn't this chorus bigger?' In a way, it's minimal. But the song isn't minimal whatsoever. I realized that about my music, I'm just not a minimal person. When I think of pop music, I lean towards the '80s and '90s without meaning to."

    "The song doesn't sound as complicated as what it is, but that's the point," she added. "It shouldn't sound complicated to your ear. That's the goal: putting all these things together that technically don't make sense, and then trying to figure out. The thing in the song that was important to me is the dynamic of it. I don't think it's a very quiet song."
  • Sky Ferreira wrote "Don't Forget" with New Zealand singer-songwriter Tamaryn. "I've always wanted to work with her," the singer said. "I think she's an important artist too. She writes such interesting, cool pop songs for herself. She gets to the point of things, but also I like her sense of humor. It's not like 'haha' funny, but I like the bite in her songs. Our music's different, and it still sounds like me, but she got me."
  • Ferreira co-produced the track with longtime collaborator Jorge Elbrecht. They also worked on "Downhill Lullaby" together, and Elbrecht is part of Ferreira's touring band.
  • Sky Ferreira debuted the song live during her June 9, 2022 performance at the NOS Primavera Sound Festival in Porto, Portugal.

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