You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
I have a niece who's nine,
and she told me the other day that she loves Please Please Please by Sabrina Carpenter,
but she knows that it, quote, has a bad word in it.
And the following conversation, talking about that song, also has bad words in it.
So...
Asha and everyone else, just a heads up, this episode contains explicit language.
Before the day that you all started working on this song,
was there a thought or an idea that was in your mind before you ever got to the songwriting stage?
I think it was just such a specific thing that I was going through.
Just like feeling like as a young woman,
one day you can be so confident and detached and the next day you're...
for lack of a better term, a desperate hoe.
And it was something that was making us laugh.
And I feel like this song was the perfect way to kind of just lay it all out on the table and also talk about something so openly that maybe we're normally just afraid of saying,
which is like, sometimes you're just embarrassed by men.
Sabrina Carpenter is a singer, songwriter, and actress.
She had a huge year with her album Short and Sweet, which came out in August 2024.