- Kelly Clarkson says she has bad memories associated with her hit single, "Since U Been Gone."
- The singer told "Watch What Happens Live" that there was confusion about who was writing the lyrics.
"Since U Been Gone" may be one of Kelly Clarkson's most memorable hits, but it turns out the singer almost didn't want to record it.
During an appearance on "Watch What Happens Live" on Tuesday, the 41-year-old said her record label "lied" to her and told her that she could write the lyrics to the song, only to learn that they had already been written.
Clarkson discussed the song after being asked by a fan whether she had spoken to the legendary music producer Clive Davis since he released his 2013 memoir, which recounted his experience working on the hit song.
The host, Andy Cohen, told Clarkson that Davis wrote "a bunch" about her in the book. Cohen said the music producer argued in the memoir that "he had to force you to record it, and you didn't want to include it on your album."
"Well, here's why," Clarkson responded. "I was lied to. They told me, 'Hey, there's these producers that want to work with you. There's this song.' It had dummy lyrics."
She continued: "They didn't really have lyrics yet, and they were like, 'We just want you to work with them.'"
Clarkson said she was told by her label "to write to the song" before being flown out to Sweden to record the track with the producers Max Martin and Lukasz Gottwald, better known as Dr. Luke. But when she got there, she realized that Martin and Gottwald had already put lyrics to the song.
"Luke and Max were not told that I was writing to it and just already had it written, and I looked like a fool because I walked in and the label had told me something completely different," Clarkson said.
"I just think that's a red flag. Like, why lie to me like that? Why get me to go there and they have the song? I don't like the lying."
"So that's why I have a bad vibe with that song," she added of the track, which earned her a Grammy for the best female pop vocal performance. "That's the origin story."
Despite Clarkson's bad memories about recording the song — Martin and Gottwald's lyrics were used in the end, and the pair are credited as the songwriters — now, almost two decades later, she has found a way to push those aside.
"How do you separate the baggage from the song that came before with the love that people have for it?" Cohen asked.
"Oh, my gosh. I'm such a great compartmentalizer. I can put that aside, and I'll sing the hell out of it on tour," she replied.
When Davis released his tell-all memoir, "The Soundtrack of My Life," in 2013, Clarkson responded by posting a lengthy personal note to her fans in which she described the Grammy Award-winning producer's version of events as "misinformation" and "memory lapses."
However, the "Stronger" singer appeared to forget all about that as she appeared surprised when Davis' memoir was brought up on the talk show.
"Wait, he has a memoir with stories about me?" she asked.
"Are you serious? Oh, they're talking about me, aren't they," she said to applause from the audience. "I didn't know that," she added.