On the latest episode of me & dad radio on Apple Music, Billie and her dad Patrick share essential songs from her childhood including tracks by the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, The Beatles and more. During the episode, she shouts out Britney Spears for posting videos on Instagram to her songs and recalls dancing to her songs as a child. She also speaks about how Avril Lavigne has influenced her and the importance of her song “Losing Grip” and she also reminisces about listening to “Something” by the Beatles when she was in love. Additionally, she reflects on being “super-religious” for a period of time as a young girl.
On Britney Spears...
So I'm just playing this playlist on shuffle because I don't want to have to go through and pick. So I'm just letting my phone decide what's next. And my phone has decided to play Baby One More Time by Britney Spears. This is an incredible song. Dude, this era of Britney was just mind blowing. Shout out to Britney too, because lately, she's been... Or since I was on Instagram, which was weeks ago now, she posted a couple of videos to my songs and I almost pooped my pants. So I love you, Britney. But this one, this is a classic. Everybody knows Baby One More Time. I used to dance in the living room to this on my tiny little horrible speaker. Let's go. Let's go, Britney.
On ‘Losing Grip' by Avril Lavigne...
This is my favourite Avril song ever, a very big song from my childhood as well as Complicated, as well as I'm With You, as well as Sk8er Boi, Girlfriend, blah, blah, blah, Keep Holding On. But this one came back into my life in 2018, and we used to just get down to this song. God...We used to just scream this song in the car. God, this song...This chorus is just like ... Oh my God, it's so good, and the beat ... Oh my God. I've never heard a sound like that in my life. There is no other song like this. There's no other song. I'm telling you, this song does not get old. I was with all my homies two years ago and we would just scream this song wherever we went. God. Every time I hear that beginning, I'm like, "Okay, let's get ready. Okay.”
On “Something" by The Beatles When She Was in Love & Growing Up With Their Music...
I remember listening to this song when I was in love, or whatever, and yeah. This song really, once again, got me. I don't know. I think that it's such a well put song. I think the lyrics say something that I barely hear, and I feel like lots of people are saying something similar, but I feel like only The Beatles could say exactly this. It's such a thing that we feel, it's such a human feeling. So this is Something by the The Beatles. Also, everybody knows that The Beatles were the main, probably, pool of music that we listened to growing up. This is one out of basically all of their songs that I loved and adored growing up, but this one really stuck with me. Yeah, this is Something by The Beatles.
I think part of the reason this song used to make me so emotional is I just wanted somebody to feel this way about me so bad. I felt this way about a thousand people, because I was a little love-crazed child. Lost my will to love about a year ago, so it's been a while. Anyway, not relevant. Yeah, my whole dream was I always wanted somebody to think and talk about me the way that Aladdin talks about Jasmine in the movie.
On Being “Super-Religious” For a Period of Time as a Young Girl...
Billie: I don't know if any of you know, I don't think I've ever talked about it. When I was little, when I was a little kid, I was super religious for no damn reason. My family never was religious. I didn't know anyone that was religious. And for some reason, as a little girl, I just was incredibly religious. And then that went on for years. And then at one point, I don't know what happened. It just completely went away. And then it was weird because then I had a couple years of being almost anti-religious for no reason also. And I don't know why that happened. I don't know what made me that way. And then after that period of my life, I've loved the idea of other beliefs. And I think people with closed minds, people like me from a couple years ago, I think that's very pathetic to have a closed mind. And it's very lame and I love hearing people's beliefs. And I love talking about what people believe in and hearing why they believe in it and what makes them believe in it. And especially if I don't agree, because I like to listen and I like to understand. And I think it's really important to be supportive of all beliefs in the world and all opinions and not shoot people down for what they believe in. So, Yeah.
Patrick: And from my point of view, as a parent, we did not go to church and we didn't really talk about religion at all. And wasn't in our household very much. And you just ... believed. You had all these kind of organised thoughts about the whole thing. And I thought it was pretty marvellous. I didn't object to it. I didn't say you can't believe that.
Billie: No, you guys were really supportive of me, but I don't, not believe and I don't do believe I'm in a very neutral position. I'm open to every belief pretty much. And yeah, I love the idea that there's a God. So why not? How would I know? I'm not going to say I know, I don't, nobody knows.
