Houdini

Harry Houdini was a famous early 20th-century illusionist and magician who was noted for his escape acts. Here, Jade Bird uses the performer's name as a metaphor for former love interests who walked out on her without a reason. "I had no control or choice on their appearances and disappearances," she explained. "Sort of like the man himself."

Bird wrote the song in the mountains in upstate New York. Having penned her first album in the same area, she rented a home in early 2020 to do some songwriting for her sophomore record. The singer-songwriter explained to The Boot that coming across the word "Houdini" in a song she became obsessed with the word but couldn't come up with a concept to go with it. In her New York house she noticed "this weird, framed picture with a sort of strange, upside-down man that I realized was Houdini." All of a sudden, the famous escape artist seemed to be the perfect metaphor for all the figures, especially males, who had left her life in the past without warning.

The song came easily, although Jade Bird wrote the middle eight with her guitarist/boyfriend Luke Prosser later on. "He played the chords, and the words just completely flowed," she said. "A lot of this song was catharsis, just closing the door on a complicated past in a way."