Bittersweet

Album: Make a Scene (2010)
Charted: 25
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Songfacts®:

  • This club thumper is the lead single from British dance pop singer-songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor's fourth studio album, Make a Scene. The song was premiered on the radio station Gaydar on March 8, 2010, and debuted live at the Little World Festival in Méribel, France, on March 17, 2010.
  • Ellis-Bextor explained the meaning of the song to CMU: "The single is about the beginning of a love affair where you are aware that you might get really hurt and it might be bad for you but you are in over your head and intoxicated by it and can't do anything about it."
  • Ellis-Bextor wrote the song with Hannah Robinson soon after coming home from the hospital after giving birth to her second son, Kit. She recalled in a Q&A session on her website: "It was a very, very relaxed writing session just after I'd come back from hospital. I was taking things easy and Hannah Robinson, who I write a lot with, came round. I was still feeding Kit at the time, so I had to keep stopping every two or three hours to feed him. I remember at one point in particular I was actually feeding him while I was writing. I was thinking, 'This is pretty much the modern pop star.'"
  • British songwriter Hannah Robinson has contributed to a number of hits, including Rachel Stevens' "Some Girls" and Ladyhawke's "My Delirium." She also achieved a #1 on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart with her own recording, "Give Me Your Love," a collaboration with Carl Cox. Ellis-Bextor said of working with Robinson: "I've been working with Hannah for years. I first met her for the third album. We wrote Me And My Imagination together, and a few other songs. She's lovely. She's a great songwriter and we just really clicked. I think she's probably my favourite top line writer to collaborate with, really."
  • Ellis-Bextor also teamed up with Freemasons for this song. The singer previously collaborated with the English dance production duo on their hit single, "Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer)." She said regarding this song: "They sent the instrumental to me and we wrote our stuff over the top. Then they mixed it and added a few parts."

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