Heather By Conan Gray - Songfacts

Toggle navigation

• Home
• Categories
• Places
• Blog
  • Blogs Home
  • Songwriter Interviews
  • Song Writing
  • Fact or Fiction
  • They're Playing My Song
  • Music Quiz
  • Songfacts Pages
  • Songwriting Legends
  • Songfacts Podcast
  • All Titles
  • Authors
    • Amanda Flinner
    • April Fox
    • Bruce Pollock
    • Carl Wiser
    • Corey O'Flanagan
    • Dan MacIntosh
    • Developer
    • Ed Pearce
    • Greg Prato
    • Jeff Suwak
    • Jess Grant
    • Laura Antonelli
    • Leslie Michele Derrough
    • Maggie Grimason
    • Nicole Roberge
    • Roger Catlin
    • Shawna Ortega
    • Stephanie Myers
    • Trevor Morelli
• Browse
  • Songs
  • Artists
  • Places
  • Years
  • Categories

Search

Heatherby Conan Gray

Album: Kid Krow (2020)Charted: 17 46 License This Song  lyrics

Songfacts®:

• This folky ballad is about unrequited love. Conan Gray's crush doesn't reciprocate as they only have eyes for a girl named Heather.Watch as she stands with her, holding your handPut your arm 'round her shoulder, now I'm getting colderBut how could I hate her? She's such an angelBut then again, kinda wish she were deadThe song explores Gray's feelings of frustration that his crush doesn't love him back and his love/hate relationship with the angelic Heather.
• The song is based on an actual teenage experience of Gray's. When he was in high school, he spent four years in love with a person who didn't love him back as they were in a relationship with a girl named Heather. "Heather was gentle and beautiful, inside and out," he explained. "She was warm like a summer day, and had so many friends. She was soft and so easily lovable - everything I am not."
• Gray wrote the song with his regular producer Dan Nigro (Sky Ferreria's "I Blame Myself," Freya Ridings' "Castles"). Nigro also played the piano, guitar and bass. Jack Latham, aka Jam City (Kelela's "LMK," Troye Sivan's "The Good Side") supplied additional production.
• When this song took off on TikTok, "Heather" became a term for a beautiful girl. Urban Dictionary describes "Heather" as "when someone says that you're Heather, they mean that everybody can't help but like you."
• Dillon Matthew and Conan Gray directed the intimate video, which shows the singer dressing himself and styling his hair in the same way the idolized Heather might.Said Gray: "The 'Heather' video is my way of becoming all of the things that I envy about Heather. I would've done anything to be like her. Wear the right pretty clothes and act the right effortless way. Reject all the things that made me who I am. Anything to be loved back by the person I loved. Anything to be their first choice. The slow transformation throughout the video was made to represent the feminine and masculine traits I constantly switched between in order to become who I knew my crush would like. Somebody soft and sweet. Somebody like Heather."
• Conan Gray told Apple Music that this gentle, heartbreaking ballad is the most honest account of his love life he's ever written. He said Heather is sweet and pure and "smells like daisies," but he hated her because the person he really liked was in love with her and not him. Gray confessed that it's a "humiliating thing to admit, but it's true." Gray went on to say that though he shouldn't despise someone as wonderful as Heather, he's not the only one to have such feelings but has never heard anyone else admit to them.
• Asked by Radio.com if the real-life Heather has heard the song, Gray said he's unsure as he's not in contact with her. "We don't have matching friendship bracelets or something," he said, adding that Heather may not even know who he is.
• Conan Gray admitted to James Corden when he performed the song on The Late Late Show that it almost didn't make the cut for Kid Krow."I just thought that maybe nobody would relate to it, I thought that maybe I was insane for feeling the way I felt," he said. "It's not a very nice song; it's not nice to tell someone that you want them to disappear.""So yeah, I almost didn't put it on the album," Gray continued. "I thought that I was crazy, and turns out that I'm not the only one that's felt that way about someone. I think everybody as a Heather in their life."
• Producer Dan Nigro likes to make music that sounds personal to the listener and this song is a case in point. "The vision was to keep it as cinematic as possible and also to keep the vocal almost uncomfortably in your face," he told Billboard. "I was like, 'I want it to feel like you're in the room and hearing this person talking to you,' in terms of the verse."

• More songs from Conan Gray
• More songs with girls' names in the title
• More songs about unrequited love
• More songs about jealousy
• More songs from 2020
• Lyrics to Heather

Your name as you would like it displayed Your Locaton Your Comment send your comment

Comments

Be the first to comment...

More Songfacts:

Don't Stop Believin'Journey

The "Don't Stop Believin'" resurgence started when the Journey song was used in a roller skating scene of the 2003 movie Monster.

The Jean GenieDavid Bowie

The band Simple Minds took their name from the line "He's so simple minded he can't drive his module" in David Bowie's "The Jean Genie."

Ziggy StardustDavid Bowie

David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" was likely based on various musicians in his ambit, including Iggy Pop (zIGGY), and Jimi Hendrix, who played guitar left-handed ("He played it left hand").

Jet City WomanQueensrÿche

The setting for the Queensrÿche song "Jet City Woman" is Seattle, the "jet city."

BelieveCher

When "Believe" hit #1 in America, it made Cher, age 52, the oldest woman ever to top the chart.

Hey MamaDavid Guetta

The bedrock of David Guetta's Nicki Minaj-featuring single "Hey Mama" is a sample of "Rosie," a 1940s prison recording from folk archivist Alan Lomax that songwriter Esther Dean first showed the French DJ on YouTube.

Editor's Picks

Grammar In LyricsMusic Quiz

Lyrics don't always follow the rules of grammar. Can you spot the ones that don't?

Allen Toussaint - "Southern Nights"They're Playing My Song

A song he wrote and recorded from "sheer spiritual inspiration," Allen's didn't think "Southern Nights" had hit potential until Glen Campbell took it to #1 two years later.

Randy NewmanSongwriting Legends

Newman makes it look easy these days, but in this 1974 interview, he reveals the paranoia and pressures that made him yearn for his old 9-5 job.

Rob Halford of Judas PriestSongwriter Interviews

Rob Halford dives into some of his Judas Priest lyrics, talking about his most personal songs and the message behind "You've Got Another Thing Comin'."

Jason Newsted (ex-Metallica)Songwriter Interviews

The former Metallica bassist talks about his first time writing a song with James Hetfield, and how a hand-me-down iPad has changed his songwriting.

Rickie Lee JonesSongwriter Interviews

Rickie Lee Jones on songwriting, social media, and how she's handling Trump.

Songfacts® Newsletter

A monthly update on our latest interviews, stories and added songs

What's your email? SUBSCRIBE

Information

• About Us
• Terms of Service
• Our Privacy Policy
• Google Privacy Policy
• Songfacts API
• Music History Calendar
• Song Licensing
• Affiliate Disclosure
• Contact Us
• Privacy Manager

Follow Us

• Facebook
• X (Twitter)
• YouTube

Contribution

• Message Boards
• Songfacts Writers

©2026 Songfacts, LLC