No stranger to Genius Conan Gray is back to discuss his latest hit “Alley Rose.” The popular song is produced by Greg Kurstin and off Conan’s latest album Found Heaven. On today’s episode of Verified, find out why the singer-songwriter feels like this is his first love song.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00I think of Ally Rose as my very first love song.
00:03It's not a song about hating someone.
00:05It's very much a song where I look at something that happened and I'm really grateful.
00:10I could go through anything.
00:11As long as I write a good song about it, it's chill.
00:20I wrote Ally Rose right after I got dumped.
00:24I've never been dumped before and I was in my first relationship.
00:28And it was devastating.
00:3010 out of 10, recommend.
00:32It's really fun.
00:33It's really formative.
00:34It really changes you as a person.
00:35I was flying to London in order to see this person that I was dating, at least I thought
00:42I was.
00:43I landed in London and then got dumped immediately over text message on the airplane.
00:50It was hilarious.
00:52Like of course, that's what happened for my first breakup ever.
00:55Then I was just in London with no one to see and nothing to do.
01:00And so the idea for Ally Rose popped up in my mind.
01:04Essentially in my mind, I was like walking on Abbey Road.
01:07So the song was originally called Abbey Road, but then I figured I probably shouldn't name
01:12my favorite song off of my new album, Bound Heaven, after the most famous album of all
01:17time.
01:26When you're in a relationship, there are these weird things where you feel like you can't
01:40really talk about them.
01:41The biggest problem that can arise in any relationship, whether it's a friendship or
01:46family or you're dating someone, is just miscommunication.
01:50It was just this situation where I could tell a ton of shit in life was being held onto
01:55this person and I knew that there was so much more than I could really understand because
02:00they were never going to tell me.
02:18I think in every relationship, you have this moment, it's so hard to explain.
02:22You don't know why, but you just know deep in your heart that for whatever reason, it's
02:28the end.
02:28I remember this moment so clearly.
02:31I could just feel something in the air and I called my best friend the next morning and
02:35I was like, I just have this weird feeling that that was the last time I'm ever going
02:38to see that person.
02:39And she was like, no, no, what are you talking about?
02:41It's fine, you're just being paranoid.
02:43And then I got dumped.
02:53So I came up with the name Ally Rose because I wanted something that you didn't really
03:06think too hard when you heard the name.
03:08The beauty of music, which goes against genius in every way, is it can mean whatever it means
03:14to you as a person, you know?
03:16So I mostly just wanted it to make people just think but also not think at all.
03:20It's a name that makes you think of somebody in particular, but also of nobody.
03:42The quote in the second verse is something that this person used to say to me all the
03:46time where they were always like, oh, why are you so nervous?
03:49Why are you so freaked out?
03:50I was really scared because I was really close friends with this person and my biggest
03:54fear in our relationship was that we'd stop being friends and then life happens, love
03:59happens, and then you stop being friends.
04:02More than even losing someone to date, I couldn't care less about that because I'd never even
04:07dated people in my life.
04:08The thing that was most devastating to me was losing a friend.
04:11So that's why I wanted to say in that verse, this is why I was nervous.
04:14Of course, this is how I feel.
04:16But you're probably not going to be friends with your ex, let's be real.
04:21I always thought that if I were to end up going through a breakup, that I was going
04:45to be the person who just like dumped this person because I'm so afraid of true and
04:50intimacy, which is just like something I've always dealt with.
04:53I thought necks were made for bruising.
04:54I thought lips were made for lies because every experience of love that I'd grown up
04:59with or witnessing my friends or witnessing my family growing up and things, I'd never
05:05really seen love work out.
05:06So I figured since that was all I'd ever known, I would probably just end up doing the same.
05:11So in a way, getting dumped was like a really nice surprise for me because I was like, oh,
05:17okay, so like, it's fine.
05:18Maybe I'm not going to commit the sins of my parents.
05:20Yeah.
05:44I used to always think of everything as so black and white.
05:47Life isn't like that.
05:48Nothing is black and white.
05:49There can be good things that happen along with the bad and they come together.
05:52So this whole bridge is me saying, I thought all of these things, but actually you're the
05:57first person who's ever proven me wrong and shown me that it doesn't always have to be
06:01that way.
06:02And even though things ended bad, there's still so much good that came out of it.
06:18So I'm like a huge fucking loner.
06:24I have like three friends and they're super close and they mean everything to me.
06:30This person was one of them.
06:31I wanted to end the song with like, I thought that I was your only friend because it's just
06:35one last moment where I was like, that was sad because we were really close friends.
06:39And hopefully every relationship that you experience in life is someone that you would
06:43consider a friend because you'd be surprised.
06:45Some people are not dating their friends and that's not a good thing.
06:48I think you should date people that you like.
06:52There's nothing better to do in life than to be heartbroken listening to really depressing
06:58music walking around in London.
07:00It's actually my favorite activity on earth.
07:03I've been doing Genius interviews since I was 18 or 19 and I'm 25 now.
07:09It's weird.
07:10This little time capsule of my entire life as an adult is just here and it's very nice
07:16to be back.