Pretty Please

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The song was created during studio sessions where the writing team—Lipa, Julia Michaels, Caroline Ailin, and Ian Kirkpatrick—decided to see what they would get from writing another song together. They started with the bassline and the title "Pretty Please," building a story from there. Michaels suggested slowing the song before the chorus, and Kirkpatrick matched the tempo to Lipa's singing. He sang the layered backing vocal "pretty," while Michaels sang harmonies. For percussion, Kirkpatrick was inspired by drummer Nate Smith's hi-hat placement, creating a "push and pull" feel. He used an LFO tool on the drums to soften transients and even turned crowd noise into an up-hat in the second verse, which he called "the coolest idea he's ever had." A clock ticking serves as a percussion element throughout. Kirkpatrick recorded his p-bass with accidental reverb on some notes, then edited it for tight silence between notes, and added a sub bass for the hook. The middle eight includes a re-pitched snippet from Lipa's 2017 single "New Rules" where she sings "I gotta tell them to myself."

In Their Own Story

The song opens with a skeletal funk sound before layers of production trickle in: guitar chord stabs in the second bridge, a chopped guitar in the third hook, and beeping sounds. In the middle eight, a slow build of funk guitars and cowbells pushes toward the final chorus, where a clap and tambourine are introduced. Lipa starts with giddy, half-rapped vocals that transition into sultry whispers, conjuring anxiousness and sexual tension. The lyrics focus on intimacy and vulnerability: Lipa promises to be chill at the beginning of a relationship but realizes it's against her nature. She pleads for her lover to stay and slow down the whirring of her mind, asking for stress-relieving sex. The opening line "somewhere in the middle, I think I lied a little" sums up the meaning, according to Lipa.

Reader's Guide

To appreciate "Pretty Please," focus on its production details. Kirkpatrick layered drums with a little kick and added a transient to the snare, and included big whoops as space fillers with faded ends. He used an OTT compressor to get musical elements across at low volume. The song is in C♯ major at 107 BPM, in 4/4 time, and runs 3:14. It features buoyant cowbell bursts, disco strings, disco and funk guitars, intergalactic choirs, and percussion like kitchen utensils. Bright synthesizer flashes shift the sound from 1970s disco to late 1990s/early 2000s dance-pop. The instrumental elements weave in and out throughout the song. Commercially, it reached numbers 48, 79, and 101 in Lithuania, Slovakia, and Portugal, and charted at number 70 on the UK Official Audio Streaming Chart. It earned a gold certification in Canada from Music Canada. Remixes by Masters at Work and Midland appeared on the remix album *Club Future Nostalgia* (28 August 2020). Lipa promoted the song with live performances at the FIFA 21 world premiere (1 October 2020), Studio 2054 livestream (27 November 2020), NPR Tiny Desk Concert (4 December 2020), the Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party (25 April 2021), and the 2021 Brit Awards. A video of her performing at Lovestream Festival in 2022 went viral that same year.

Did You Know?

• Ian Kirkpatrick used a clock ticking as a percussion element for almost the entire song.
• Kirkpatrick accidentally recorded his p-bass with reverb on some notes and decided to leave it in.
• The middle eight includes a re-pitched snippet from Dua Lipa's 2017 single 'New Rules'.
• Kirkpatrick described turning crowd noise into an up-hat in the second verse as 'the coolest idea he's ever had'.
• The song earned a gold certification in Canada from Music Canada.