Tones and I is not the biggest fan of her 2019 breakthrough hit “Dance Monkey.”
“I loathe that song a lot of the time,” she said on Nova FM in her native Australia. “Like, a lot of time, I don’t want to sing it.”
The singer, whose real name is Toni Watson, reflected on a songwriting workshop in Los Angeles where potential collaborators were anxious to duplicate the song’s success.
“I was like, ‘I don’t want to go there anymore.’ That was great good for me. Like, I wrote that song on my own not trying to do a single thing and it happened,” explained Tones, “but I don’t want to just try to chase that song.
“I’m not gonna write another song like it, I just want to tell people how I’m feeling.”
“Dance Monkey,” which Tones wrote about busking, has been streamed more than 7 billion times and topped the charts in several countries, including Canada. The video has been viewed more than 1.8 billion times on YouTube.
Tones and I is scheduled to perform at Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall on July 28, at the Osheaga festival in Montreal on July 29, and at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom on Aug. 7.