I Couldn't Be Your Friend

This was originally a completely different song. Tegan explained to Under The Radar: "We have a big panel of people whose advice we'll consider on songs, like my mom, and our producer, and our manager, our A&R friends, and music collaborators, and this was a song that nobody had originally picked except for our A&R and our art director, Emy [Storey]. They both really liked just one specific part of it, which happened to be the chorus in the original version. This was, like, a re-do. I just become obsessed with the idea that I could make it a better song, so I'm really excited that it made the record."

Sara co-wrote the chorus with Tegan. "It's definitely one of the really poppy ones on the record," said Tegan to Under The Radar. "I think that the [idea] behind it is really dark and depressing, too, which is exciting because it is so poppy. I like the juxtaposition of really depressing lyrics with a really poppy, bright production."

This is one of eight tracks on Hearthrob that was produced by Greg Kurstin, who has also worked with such pop acts as Lily Allen and Kesha. "I hate stereotypes," Tegan told UK newspaper The Guardian, "but I had this horrible fear that because he'd made all these pop records, the process wouldn't feel so creative ... so organic or emotional. But the album we've made is just as wild and funny as any of our records."
"We had lunch with him," Sara continued, "and he said to us that people think that pop music is contrived and simplistic, but it can be nothing like that ... and I came out of the restaurant thinking 'this sounds great!'"