Homesick

This song finds Dua Lipa singing about being away from her lover. She wrote the tune with Coldplay's Chris Martin, who joins in halfway through. Dua Lipa told NME the collaboration was a last-minute addition that at one point didn't look like happening. "I get this email saying, 'Why don't you meet Chris at this studio in Malibu and play him your stuff?' And I'm like, 'Oh my God,'" the songstress recalled. So a nervous Dua Lipa took the trip to meet the Coldplay star. "He's listening attentively and wants to know the meaning behind the songs," she said. "Then he's like, 'OK, why don't we try something for your album?' He sets up the mics and we're just humming ideas, making up melodies and recording it all. It was already quite late, so he gave me what we'd recorded and said, 'Have a listen back. If you think there's something good there, we'll come back to it.' I just thought, 'He's sending me on my way now, we're never gonna see each other again.'" But Lipa listened back, picked out one of the melodies they'd written and arranged a second session. "At first, it was just meant to be me [singing], but then I begged him to sing too. I was like, 'You have to be on this song!' And he agreed. It's the most beautiful song on the album. I think it really brings everyone in for a little cry."

Asked by the BBC how she ended up working with Chris Martin, Dua Lipa replied: "I was in a meeting and someone asked, 'Who would you love to work with?' and I said, 'I'd love to write a song with Chris Martin.' One of the ladies in the room said, 'Oh, I've been working with him for a while - I'll happily send him some of your music.' So I picked a few songs but I didn't really know what to expect. It was a leap of faith. Then I got an email saying, 'Chris would love to meet you. Why don't you come to his studio in Malibu?' I was really nervous and really excited at the same time. I didn't know how to act."

Written by Dua Lipa and Chris Martin in Los Angeles, the rain in the lyrics is a reminder of the British songstress' home in London. "I always miss home and I always miss the rain," she told Billboard. "It's only when it rains in L.A. when I go, 'Oh, this is what London feels like and this is the part where I love it the most because I feel like there's a tiny bit of home that I get to carry with me every time that it rains." Dua Lipa added: "The whole song is really about the sacrifice that you make spending so much time away from all your loved ones and your friends and your family to live your dream and do what you love."