Charli XCX Reveals 'Talk Talk' Is About Nearly Following Fiancé George Daniel to the Bathroom at 2020 NME Awards

• In a TikTok video, Charli XCX revealed the meaning behind her song "Talk Talk" off her new album, Brat
• The "360" singer recalled how a "very specific moment" with her fiancé, George Daniel, at the 2020 NME Awards inspired the track's lyrics
• The pop star announced her engagement to The 1975 drummer in November 2023

Charli XCX's love life has inspired her new music in more ways than one.

The “360” singer, 31, dropped her sixth studio album, Brat, on Friday, June 7, and, according to her, it includes a song about a “very specific moment” shared with her fiancé, The 1975’s George Daniel, at the 2020 NME Awards. 

At the time, the couple weren't even in a relationship yet, but were “very into each other,” Charli revealed in a new TikTok video while breaking down the meaning behind her track “Talk Talk.”

“We were at the NME Awards, we were both sat on different tables, and we were like texting each other, but we weren’t hanging out,” the Crash artist recalled. “But we were both looking over at each other — it was very like, one of us would look, and the other one would look away, and then just vice versa.”

“You know, when you just feel like someone is watching you, you can feel a hole burning in the back of your head or something like that,” she continued. “It was very much that moment.”

In “Talk Talk,” Charli touches on her then-secret romance with Daniel, singing lyrics like, “I've been lookin' at you / Puttin' holes in your head / We've been talking for months / But never in the same room / And now I wanna approach ya / But we've been keeping this a secret / And you're surrounded by friends / And I'm just wondering what they know.”

Elsewhere in the song, the pop star sings a line that says, “I followed you to the bathroom / But then I felt crazy,” which, apparently, actually happened with Daniel at the NME Awards, where the drummer, 34, also performed and picked up awards with his band.

“I did actually do that,” Charli laughed in her TikTok. “I saw that he went to the bathroom, so I was like, oh, I’ll go to the bathroom, and maybe we’ll bump into each other, and then we won’t be like texting all the time.”

“But then I got halfway there, and I was like, this is insane,” she added, “and then I went and sat down again.”

PEOPLE confirmed Charli and Daniel’s engagement in November 2023, over a year after the former first went public with their relationship on Instagram. The “Speed Drive” singer first quietly revealed the news in a selfie posted on her private Instagram for fans, where she casually flashed a diamond ring on her hand. She later made a wide announcement on her public Instagram account by posting now-deleted photos with the indie-pop drummer captioned, “charli xcx and george daniel f---ing for life!!!”

During a December interview on the Spout Podcast, the Grammy-nominated pop artist opened up about collaborating with her beau on her new album, describing the first-time experience of making music with a romantic partner as a "whole new dynamic.” 

“It’s funny, I have never sort of been in a relationship with someone that I’ve worked with,” Charli shared, “so it’s like a whole new dynamic. But it’s cool.”

In a recent cover story interview with Rolling Stone UK, the “Boom Clap” singer touched on her studio process with Daniel again, joking about how the two like to maintain healthy competition when working on records together.

“We want to impress each other, and we think we’re both really good, but I’m actually such a bitch in the studio with George,” Charli told the outlet. “Because we’re obviously so close, you lose everything in terms of the normal studio boundaries.”

She added, “We flow really well, and he leaves a lot of space for people to breathe and be them and do their process.”