Miley Cyrus said Flowers wasn't always the breakup anthem you thought it was. In an interview with British Vogue, promoting her album Endless Summer Vacation, she shared how Flowers started. Apparently, she wrote it in “a really different way.”
Flowers was at the top of US Billboard charts for eight weeks, and another consecutive 10 in the United Kingdom. It's quintessentially Miley. It also made Spotify history when it became the first song to reach a billion streams the fastest. Although, the singer knows it might not stay that way forever, “I might be number one now, but number two is on its way. Everything is seasonal.”
Many love to spend their time decoding the real meaning behind the lyrics of the hit song, and Miley Cyrus will let them keep at it. She dismissed any help decoding the lyrics, leaving everyone still wondering if it was about her ex Liam Hemsworth. She says cryptically, “I never need to be a master at the craft of tricking an audience. It will set itself on fire all by itself.”
Cyrus wanted to make a song that she could do with hearing. “I wrote it in a really different way. The chorus was originally: ‘I can buy myself flowers, write my name in the sand, but I can’t love me better than you can.’ It used to be more, like, 1950s. The saddest song. Like: ‘Sure, I can be my own lover, but you’re so much better.'”
Ultimately, she chose a more uplifting route, perhaps for her own sake as well as others. “The song is a little fake it till you make it. Which I’m a big fan of.”
Listen to Endless Summer Vacation wherever you consume music.