“You know what would be really f–king cool on this? Sabrina.”
When Girl in Red’s Marie Ulven Ringheim was recording “You Need Me Now?” for her latest album, I’m Doing It Again, Baby!, she had an epiphany: she needed Sabrina Carpenter on the track.
“I was on my way to Australia listening to ‘Nonsense,’ her song, on repeat the entire f–king flight,” Ulven, 25, told Us Weekly exclusively about discovering Carpenter, also 25. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m obsessed with this song.’”
After Ulven posted on Instagram about how much she loved “Nonsense,” Carpenter reached out to say that she saw Ulven’s 2022 Coachella set — and the feeling was mutual.
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“Then I reached out again later in the summer because I just came up with the idea, it would just be so fun to have her on the song,” Ulven added. “I had made the transition jokingly in the studio without even asking her first. And then I sent that to her.”
That transition line — which Ulven threw out there before she had even reached out to Carpenter — made it on the album, and the rest is history.
“We were like, ‘Wait a minute, that’s actually really funny to break the fourth wall and then introduce someone to sing,’” Ulven told Us. “[Sabrina] was like, super down. She recorded it in New York, four hours, schmick, schmack, bam. We patched it all together and it sounded bangin’.”
After Ulven expresses her desire for Carpenter to be in the song about two-thirds of the way through, the “Espresso” singer says, “Oh, my God, you’re so right / I’m gonna sing now” before jumping into her verse.
“[Sabrina’s] such a big star,” Ulven told Us. “I’m such a big fan of her. She deserves everything she’s working for and everything that’s coming her way.”
Ulven — whose 2021 debut studio album, If I Could Make It Go Quiet, went viral in the U.S. and earned Ulven two Norwegian Grammy Awards — said that her sophomore album came from a “better place.” While Quiet largely addressed the Norwegian singer-songwriter’s personal mental health struggles, Again embraces fun and self-confidence.
“All of my ideas were a little more energetic, a little bit more about love and feeling good about yourself,” Ulven told Us of I’m Doing It Again, Baby! “It’s not just all sad and stuff.”
A major contributor to Ulven’s newfound confidence as a performer came from playing some of the largest arenas in the world as an opening act for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour.
Swift, 34, first got in touch with Ulven when Swift shared her song “I’ll Call You Mine” via her Instagram Story — an unprecedented move for the pop star.
“My initial reaction when I saw that was sobbing for an hour,” Ulven recalled. “And just hugging everyone around me and crying and just being so grateful because her music has been such a big part of my upbringing and sort of me getting into music.”
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While Ulven said that being part of the highest-grossing tour of all time was (understandably) “really f–king scary,” she expressed her awe and gratitude for Swift and the tour repeatedly, to the point that she called herself “a little sheep that is super happy and smiley and yappy.”
Ulven is bringing that same happy energy into Pride Month. The singer-songwriter, who identifies as queer, achieved queer icon status when millions of TikTok users began asking, “Do you listen to Girl in Red?” to signify whether an individual was gay.
Ulven embraces being a role model for her LGBTQIA+ fans. “Be safe and be with your other gay friends,” she said ahead of Pride Month. “Surround yourself with other people that make you feel comfortable and safe. Support other queer artists. … Do a lot of gay s–t.”
As for Ulven’s plans to celebrate in the month of June?
“I’m hopping on a gay-ass flight to Switzerland,” she told Us.
