‘Girls’ Co-Stars Allison Williams, Ebon Moss-Bachrach Reveal The Cringey Songs They Sang Were “Discards” From Kelly Clarkson And Jack Antonoff

Girls fans were thrilled to learn that former co-stars Allison Williams and Ebon Moss-Bachrach reunited to look back on their time on the show together.

Williams famously played Marnie Michaels, the self-centered roommate to Lena Dunham’s main character, Hannah. Moss-Bachrach later joined the cast in Season 4 as Desi Harperin, Marnie’s bandmate and love interest.

The pair sat with Vanity Fair to discuss the “cringey” music they were forced to perform on the show, some of which had such “embarrassing” lyrics, Williams didn’t even want to recite them.

“We had some incredible luck in terms of the music that we performed. I actually think a lot of the songs we performed were really beautiful, the lyrics are what made them cringey often,” Williams told her former co-star. She said that her favorite song was possibly “Oaxaca,” adding, “The lyrics are so cringey I don’t want to say them out loud.”

She then recited the lyrics to the song they performed in the Season 5 episode “Homeward Bound,” which showed Marnie and Desi earnestly recording the odd song in the studio, singing, “Yeah, you’ll find me in a dark bar / Where no gringos are.”

“Marnie singing the word ‘gringo’ should be illegal,” Williams joked.

With a laugh, Moss-Bachrach said he recently found out that “most of our songs were discards from Kelly Clarkson.”

Williams replied, “I think the song ‘Breathless,’ – I guessed we’re allowed to say this, it’s been a long time, – was written by Jack Antonoff for Kelly Clarkson.”

The stars then opened up about how embarrassing it felt to perform the songs on set. “I think what was nice that was built in was that they were supposed to be maybe not so great, like nobody had very high expectations so that felt safe to me,” Moss-Bachrach said, before later admitting, “I tried as hard as I could try.”

“The lyrics were so… guileless and embarrassing, that even Leonard Cohen could sing them and they would still suck,” he declared – though Williams wasn’t so sure.

Williams also clued Moss-Bachrach on the fact that there were many memes saying Desi and Marnie were the “original Tortured Poets” after Taylor Swift’s newest album.

“It feels right, it feels canonically accurate,” Williams said.

Now, the stars can be found in their own respective projects. Moss-Bachrach is now an Emmy-winning actor thanks to his breakout performance in The Bear. Williams has also forged her own career in film and television with performances in M3GAN and Fellow Travelers.

Girls is now streaming on Max.