English singer-songwriter Jade Bird sifted through her archives to re-examine her recently released single “Burn the Hard Drive.” She began writing the song — which came out on January 24 — 18 months ago with music producer Mura Masa, legally Alexander George Edward Crossan, and her ex-fiance Luke Prosser, but didn’t fully understand what it was about.
After her breakup late last year, she realized it was the product of her unhappiness.
“It was a very codependent relationship. That’s probably why [Prosser] was in the room at that time,” said Bird, “which I look back on, and I think I wrote that song out of a suffocating situation.”
Bird recalled her painful feelings surrounding returning to the studio to work on the single.
“I listened to it, and it was kind of crushing,” she said. “It’s about deleting photographs of the past and someone you love and that was the exact point I was in. So yeah, it was really emotional.”
The day she wrote the initial version, Bird said she felt so low that she didn’t finish the song and tucked it away. Crossan asked if she wanted to leave it the way it was, but she insisted on adding a bridge.
Bird sings, “So I fall away from you/It’s proof/It only takes so long/’Til there’s nothing left to do/But erase moments one by one/If I had to choose/There’d be nothing left to remind me of you.”
The song started as a question, Bird said, and the bridge served as a conclusion to a relationship no longer serving her.
“It is tragic, but it’s cathartic nonetheless,” she said.
Bird said she previously held back from being completely vulnerable in her music, but is now more open to expressing her personal life with her listeners.
“I actually had this conversation with my mum, and she was like, ‘There’s no harm in letting people in a little bit more,'” she said. “I wrote this song called ‘Houdini,’ and it was about my dad, and the media was like, ‘It’s a breakup song,’ and I felt like, ‘I think maybe I need to be a little bit more open to allow people into something that could be quite helpful to people also in that same experience.’ Not everything is about a boy.”
She always felt the need to look strong, but now she is letting her walls down.
“I think this is a part of a new era for me of feeling so trusting of my fanbase that I can just be like, ‘This happened, it sucks, and we all do really go through it,'” said Bird. “And there’s some solidarity in that.”
Bird’s longtime collaborator Aries Moross, graphic designer and artist, reached out to Bird after listening to “Burn the Hard Drive” with an idea for a music video. Moross designed a figure with AI technology to walk with Bird like the shadow of her ex.
“[AI], especially for musicians, got a [reputation] for being a bad thing, but [we] use it in this very emotive way and have that figure be out of frame or out of shot even, but it’s still there,” said Bird. “So I’m holding hands with a ghost in effect.”
Bird said she draws strength from other female artists sharing their experiences and hopes she can help young women like herself.
“It’s like when you sit down with a female friend, and you come away from it, and you feel rejuvenated and like that was therapy in a good way,” she said.
Many people in miserable relationships lose a part of themselves. For Bird, it was her sense of humor.
“In that last year, it was so tough and dark. I think anybody who’s seen me live or knows me [knows] my sense of humor is so quintessential to who I am. Losing that was huge,” she said. “I remember having these moments on stage where I’d be like, ‘I don’t feel funny anymore. I’ve lost the light.'”
But Bird found it again and is rediscovering what brings her joy.
And she fell in love with someone new.
“I feel like I know a new unconditional kind of love. I feel amazing,” she said.
Bird said she is releasing another single in March, delving into the feelings of witnessing someone move on, and will announce her new EP then.
“When the EP comes out, it’s a bit more accepting and brighter, said Bird, “but I’m still in my moody rage.”