Song Exploder - Suki Waterhouse - Back in Love

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Suki Waterhouse is a singer-songwriter, actress, and model from London. She released her first single in 2016, and her first album, I Can’t Let Go, in 2022, on Sub Pop. You might have seen her in the show Daisy Jones & The Six, which came out in 2023. Since then, she’s also had her first child, with her partner Robert Pattinson. And all of that history figured into her new album, Loveland. For this episode, Suki told me about how she made the song “Back in Love” with her longtime collaborators, producer Jules Apollinaire and songwriter Natalie Findlay. "Back in Love" was the first single from her album, but it was the last song that was written for it.For more info, visit songexploder.net/suki-waterhouse.

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 Rishi Kesh Hirwe. This episode has some explicit language. Suki Waterhouse is a singer, songwriter, actress, and model from London. She released her first single in 2016, and her first album, I Can't Let Go, in 2022 on Subpop. You might have seen her in the show Daisy Jones in the Six, which came out in 2023. Since then, she's also had her first child with her partner, Robert Pattinson. And all of that history figured into her new album, Loveland.

For this episode, Suki told me about how she made the song Back in Love, with her longtime collaborators, producer Jules Apollinar, and songwriter Natalie Findlay. Back in Love was the first single from her album, but it was the last song that was written for it. I'm Suki Waterhouse. What was going on in your life around the time when you first started working on back in love. It was in December and I kept flying back to London to work with my long-time collaborators, Jules Apollina and Natalie Finley, who I met when I was like 18, 19, and I was a huge fan of Nats. She has a project called Finley and I got talking to them and that was kind of like

how we first met and started making music together and now we've been doing it for, yeah, longer than over a decade. It's the most amazing. thing when you find your tribe. It's hard to explain how much of a joy it is and how much of like a shorthand we have and it's like the best thing ever. It's always such a giggle working with them. It's very kind of like forget about the outside world. A lot of the times we hold up in their kind of studio in East London where they also live like it's an old warehouse that's kind of like all open, their dogs running around. But this song in particular, I was kind of at the end of writing and the album didn't feel quite complete yet.

I just knew that there was a song left. As in you didn't have enough songs for the album? Like, you needed more? I definitely didn't need more. Yeah. I think I had like 70 songs for this. But it's just annoying. It's like you know when you've given all the blood that you have.

And I knew especially with Latin Jules that we had. hadn't quite reached that peak yet. So the phrase going around that day was like, if it's not like literally what we think is like a classic, then we're not recording it. That day that we started writing was actually like not going very well at all. Me and Jules, we had this loop going and he was playing guitar and we had this song called If a Lady was your lover.

If a lady was your lover. And it was like, And that was just like not having it And she was like, this is weird This sucks, this is not universal This is like not the thing that we were setting out to do And just like the day had like really gotten away from us Then I had like this

Yeah something that I just shouldn't have even planned in the first place But I had an audition Like a Zoom audition for a TV show It was absolutely terrible Like I'm balancing on the camera Because the studio is very dark and there's like no overlighting. It's all just lamps and everything. And the casting director's like, this is terrible.

Like, I can't see you. Like, you can't do this audition. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. Like, it was just like a mess. But when I came back into the room, they'd been like locked away together. And Nat had been, yeah, I guess she has like a mouth trumpet going. Swaving that, I think. See.

Jules had got the sitar out. and had made this intro. And I walked in and I was like, oh, this feels like the gates of heaven are opening. It's funny, like, so much of our work is, like, trying things and, like, yeah, making, like, voice memos and doing things that, like, don't end up going anywhere, or we kind of just, like, forget about them,

or we're just, like, yeah, distracted by something or, like, ordering food or, like, playing with the dog. and then there's suddenly like a collective energy where we all start like actually kind of like focusing. That's Jaws translating the mouth trumpet melody onto the whor let's say. There's me. Yeah, that's right. Back in love like came out of my mouth.

And me and Nat were giggling about it because we were like, like maybe we were talking like about tit-tocks that we'd seen or something but I was like oh you know like when like a man fixes a light bulb or something and then you're like oh I'm back in love or like they mowed the lawn or took out the trash or like something like that and you're like wow you're like you got your shit down like yes I've been with Rob for like eight years now and it's like you're always in love and then sometimes you just get like oh my god like a huge pang and you're just like I'm obsessed so that was like where the back in love phrase came from.

A lot of the times, like, honestly, like, if we just get three words, just like a little phrase, you're like, okay, we can build around this. Once that intro came out, the music flowed really easily. Is Jules playing all the instruments or most of the instruments?

Jules plays everything. And I remember, like, the opening lyrics, like loneliness as a feather bed. Where did that lyric? it come from. I like started working when I was like 15 like I started modeling when I was 15 and definitely like very young. It opened like so many doors for me and like got you know open me up to like so much culture and traveled a lot. It's like you're living your dreams in so many ways but but there's like a loneliness in that when you like start doing something that just involves like a lot of

travel you just like you're not a great you can be a great friend like over the phone but you're not there for all the moments and you stop kind of like going out every week with the same group of people and it kind of falls away and so there's like a isolation in that lyric I still wanted it to feel glamorous but it's like being in a beautiful bed like by yourself or feeling by yourself Loneliness is a feather bed And then Nat just suddenly like came out with the Eyes close sitting in silence I was like putting myself in the place of like

What's it like when I'm present with myself Which isn't that fucking often But I like daydream about sitting by myself in silence Whole life hanging by a threat And there I can, like, hear the musical references. I think we'd listen to Dusty Springfield, son of a preacher. And like primal scream loaded, like 60s psychedelic. That was like the musical feeling.

Yeah, I feel like that comes through a lot. has that kind of music been a big part of your musical identity for a long time? Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. I think there's always been this like draw to the 60s. And I remember when I was like 18, I would like completely dress like a mod. And I was always in like white tights. And I've always, yeah, it sounds like really cringy to say. But I kind of felt like I should have been there. I know that sounds like so cringy. I sound like such a dick. And what about the end of the verse?

Shooting the apple off your head and sugar and violence? I think in a lot of this album, I definitely was feeling quite like volatile. You know, you wouldn't really think it's like a post having a baby record, but there's like definitely a lot of like raging postpartum hormones going on. And I feel like, do you know what I mean? I feel like in those lines sometimes that we're coming out, it's almost like this maternal like don't fuck with.

me kind of thing and like there's a kind of like protective rageness. I feel like there's this part of me that's like this craziness of me that's like been unlocked where like I've always been like the very chill person and like anything goes and like I was saying like when I first started working it was like that's like a very much industry where you're like having to be like pleasing and like being pleasing visually and like that's like probably stuff that I'm like trying to like overcome still today but like yeah now I feel like I've got like a loaded gun and there's like this thing in my life that I have something to like protect and something to lose now it's made me more fierce like I'm obsessed with like mother's instinct at the moment and like I've just become like more aware to listen

to my instincts that's actually something that's kind of like playing into being an artist I think actually is like when you're like making your record and choosing the songs and like you make something in a very pure way and you don't really care what anybody else thinks when you're making it. And then there's like the showing it to people and do the label like it, your team like it. What do they think about it? And like you can get like crushed quite quickly. And like if you really believe in it, sometimes you have to like go to like fight for stuff. And sometimes you just get tired fighting and you like relent to something.

And then you like, you're so fucking pissed that you did that, you know. Did that happen at all with this song? So we wrote the chorus and I had written with Nat, I'm losing my lust for life, praying for dark to light, just when I thought it would end, I'm back in love again. So that is kind of like where my head was. I wasn't in the most positive state of mind while writing it. So I remember like walking with my friend Poppy in Hyde Park the next day.

and playing her the song, and she's, like, such a good barometer. She's, like, basically A&R's my whole record. Like, my friend, I can just watch her face. And when it got to the chorus, I don't know, like, the excitement kind of died a little bit. And so I remember, like, going to the studio that day after that walk. And I was like, hey, like, I think we've got to change that. Because it's not that explosion of joy. But Nat and Jolls were, like, so kind of, like, happy with how,

it was and yeah then we like kind of argued about it for a while because we had just when I thought it would end and I felt like that was like weak just when I thought it would end like I was like oh that doesn't feel appealing to me it's not lighting me up actually I'm remembering now that part like convincing them that we needed to change it and then you know we like write one line and then we all start getting excited about it and it's just like one of the coolest things because I think one of us will always have like kind of a strong idea if they really don't feel something and and then it's like kind of battle of the convincing you know what did the lyrics end up becoming I'm loving my loss for life turning the dark to the light happiness hits me when I'm back in love

again and then like once we got that it was like okay I want to get to even more like what kind of visuals can we have then? And it was like dancing around like back to jazz on the radio, back to beaches, away we go. That was Nat's line. That's such a Nat line to be able to kind of like, back to beaches, away we go. I love that line. And then I remember I was thinking about like when I like walk around with Rob and we like go on walks together, just like late night walks. and when you just take the strange street home we kind of go like, what about we just go like this way

and we go through like an alleyway or something and we both get really excited about going and getting lost on purpose, the enjoyment in there. More with Suki Waterhouse after this. I feel like the second verse is really different from the first verse. Yeah, it's kind of like the bridge and the second verse so it has like a whole different melody to it. Nat and Jaws.

to come to Long Pond to Aaron Destin's studio with me for a couple of days. And we had like an amazing couple of days upstate. And Aaron would like have these amazing wines for us every night. So we'd like all been making this like song to play Aaron to say thank you for having us. And it was like, Aaron Destna, thank you for the good times and the sweet wine. And that's how we get to the sweet wine. And that's, you know, and then we're like, oh, pour another sweet wine. So I was like laughing at myself, but that was a past experience, like kind of winding its way into the song. Oh yeah, that's just clicking our fingers. Was that Jewel singing?

Yeah, the track is playing in the back and he's wore a little sweet light. It brings such a smile to my face and it's such a great example of our process in the studio and why we kind of get along so well musically as well as part. personally because like I just I love imperfection I love bleed I don't like things sounding so polished like I want to hear like actually what's happening in the room and there's like there's a magic going on in that room and there's not like a preciousness between all of us of like it has to be so perfect okay I have to ask you about this sound that's the dog that is the dog that is hilarious that you've picked that up because that is such a jewelsism

But he's put the dog in there. It's their dog? Yeah, it's Otto. That's so funny. Their dog is the cutest dog in the world. He's quite crazy as well. And it's like a war between trying to record with things that Otto hasn't eaten. Yeah, that if Otto isn't barking, it's coming back to me now that he put that in there.

I love it. It's like a percussion part. I love that you found that. The original intro was all. on satar, but at some point I was like, ah, I think it's trumpets. So Jules was like layering it with Melotron until we kind of like later had, you know, real trumpets put in. Sam E.1 is an amazing brass and horn arranger and he's played the horns.

It kind of explodes at the end into this like massive triumphant outro. I remember just yelling into the microphone like, so bad. I'm back, I'm back. And we were kind of all figuring that out at the end, and that was really fun. I feel like this record was a pull between, like, the person I was and, like, the new person that's, like, emerging. But this song, I think, was about knowing I got through something,

feeling like I'd, like, reconnected with myself. It's, like, such a huge change, having a child. And, like, yeah, I've been going through. things that felt like very difficult, but I feel like I'm good. Like the future feels like I'm excited about it. So, yeah, I think it was like I wanted this song to be like a reclaiming and also joyful. And now here's Back in Love by Suki Waterhouse in its entirety. Or visit SongExploder.net.

You'll find links to buy or stream back in love and you can watch the music video. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan, Kathleen Smith, and Tiger Biscop. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, you can subscribe to my newsletter. You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a Song Exploder shirt at SongExploder.net slash shirt.

I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening. The great podcast TryHard is back with a new season, featuring conversations with Ingrid Nielsen, Anna Sale, Alexander Chee, and so many more, including me. This season, Try Hard is diving into guests' tryhard moments, the big decisions, the pivots, and the leaps of faith that came to define their lives. Every one of the episodes digs into the powerful stories that we tell about ourselves, and what every guest has in common is that they've asked themselves the same question.

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