“I was performing for like 50 people, we didn’t have a green room, and I was sitting in the trunk of the minivan that we were driving across the country. Kiyoko recalls a fond memory of when she first saw how popular the song had become just before a show she performed in Lansing, Michigan. Hayley Kiyoko on Her Debut Album 'Expectations' and Being a Queer Pop Star: 'It's Important For… The lyrics operate as a statement to a man that she’s out to steal his girlfriend from him, as she plainly states that “Girls like girls like boys do,” before adding with a vocal shrug, “Nothing new.” While the track maintained the singer’s synth-pop sound that early fans had come to expect, the song’s lyrics delved into her queer identity with a brazen confidence that had remained unseen on previous songs. “Girls Like Girls” was unlike anything that Kiyoko had written at the time. “And that’s where ‘Girls Like Girls’ came from.” “They were like, ‘All right, if you felt fearless and weren’t scared, what would you say?’” she recalls. That was a big fear of mine, because you’re really putting yourself in the line of fire by opening your personal life up to the world.”īut in a session with co-songwriters Owen Thomas and Lily May-Young, Kiyoko was asked a very simple question: What’s something that scares you? In that moment, she came out of the closet to her co-workers, and found her voice. “I wanted to be known for being Hayley… for who I am, and not who other people think I am.

“It’s the immediate judgment that people have, and the stereotypes that they have on a female who likes women,” Kiyoko tells Billboard.

Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko