Take me back to the beginning of writing the record. I read that you were coming out of quite a turbulent period with your health, and that you started writing it almost as something to help lift you out of that. Is that correct?

It’s sort of accurate, although actually, when I started writing the record, it wasn’t too turbulent anymore. I was kind of out of the bad zone. I’d had, basically, seven years of chronic health issues that I couldn’t get to the bottom of. And then the summer before I started writing this record, I really committed to recovering and figuring out what was causing them. And so the first song I wrote was “Everybody Knows I’m Sad,” which is euphoric, but also kind of bleak lyrically. And then as I started to write a few more songs, like “Rollercoaster” and “Butterfly.” I was listening to loads of Kylie [Minogue], a lot of ’70s music, some ABBA, and Madonna, of course, who has always been such a huge influence for me. I think such a big element of this album is play, and reawakening that part of myself. I just hadn’t felt it for such a long time.

Why did “Butterfly” feel like the right single to lead with? Obviously, the butterfly metaphor speaks for itself, but with those zany vocals in the chorus, it felt like a big swing…

Yeah, I know that I don’t always make it easy for myself. [Laughs.] I know that’s a Marmite song. But I couldn’t separate it from the fact that it had to come first. I love a concept, and so how I was unveiling it had to make sense to me as a story, and I couldn’t imagine anything else leading.

I have to ask you about “Cuntissimo,” as well—that title alone. Do you remember where you were when that word first popped into your head? And how did the song unfold from there?

I think I was in the studio on my own, just writing. I think I did actually come up with the title first. I was looking at loads of photos of older glamorous women, and that was really the focal point of the track, but in a silly, playful way. I think, being 39, I’m obviously thinking about aging and how I want to walk into this next chapter as a woman, especially one with a public-facing job. And looking to older, powerful women really inspired me. One of the greatest lies that we’re told as women, or as girls, is that you lose your value as you get older. And by trying to stop the aging process, you deny yourself a lot of the power that lies on the other side of not being young anymore. Sophia Loren was a big inspiration. Salma Hayek, obviously. She’s just fab in every way. I think as women living in a patriarchal society, we always need art—whether that’s films, or music, or books—that support our confidence and empowerment. So that’s what “Cuntissimo” was about.