Why Justin Timberlake’s new single “annoyed” him at first

Photo credit: Charlotte Rutherford

If you wrote a really catchy song that sounded like a hit, you’d probably be pretty happy, right? Well, not Justin Timberlake. He says when he wrote his new single, “Drown,” he was “annoyed.”

In an Instagram video, Justin explains that he wrote “Drown” with four other people. He adds, “The song wrote itself so quickly. It kind of annoyed me, because sometimes you have this thing, like, ‘Oh, if you didn’t struggle to write the song, maybe it’s not worth it.'”

Justin continues, “The more I listened back to it and the more I played it for people, the more it was like, ‘No, this sounds like you.’ When I think back to songs like that — where I kind of underestimated that ability to have that familiarity or catch on with people — the last time was ‘Mirrors.’ I sat on that song for, like, five years.”

“Mirrors,” from his album The 20/20 Experience, reached #2 in 2013.

Justin added that the vocal on “Drown” is the demo vocal. As he explains, “I recorded it line by line as we were writing it, to just demo it out. The more we listened back to it, the more it had this honesty to it that I didn’t want to change anything.”

“Drown” is the follow-up to “Selfish.” Both tracks are from Justin’s upcoming album, Everything I Thought It Would Be.

 

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