The Meaning Behind Charli XCX's Mega Viral Song "Apple"

While “Apple” is a poppy, upbeat song that inspired a viral TikTok dance, Charli XCX has confirmed the lyrics are quite meaningful. 

In a June 2024 interview on the Las Culturistas podcast with SNL’s Bowen Yang and comedian Matt Rogers, Charli said “Apple” from her 2024 album Brat is about her relationship with her parents. 

“With this record, it’s been very much that I came in with what I wanted to say, whereas on previous records it’s not actually really been like this,” she said on Las Culturistas. “With this record, it’s been so lyrically led. Like I’ve been like ‘I want to write a song about my kinda sticky relationship with my mom and dad, which is ‘Apple.’”

The very first verse of “Apple” references a widely used idiom, typically used to describe qualities or personality traits a child has in common with their parents. In the song, Charli sings, “I guess the apple don't fall far from the tree / 'Cause I've been looking at you so long / Now I only see me / I wanna throw the apple into the sky / Feels like you never understand me / So I just wanna drive.”

Later in “Apple,” she sings about how “things passed down” in her family have impacted her in the following lyrics: “I think the apple's rotten right to the core / From all the things passed down / From all the apples coming before / I split the apple down symmetrical lines / And what I find is kinda scary / Makes me just wanna drive.”

Since its release, “Apple” has resonated with fans and topped Billboard charts, no doubt in part due to the song’s deeper meaning and poignant lyrics. 

The pop star was born in Cambridge, England in 1992. Her father, Jon Aitchison, is Scottish, and her mother, Shameera, is Indian Ugandan. 

In 2019, Charli shared in an interview with The Feed that her mother was forced to flee Uganda for the U.K. in the ‘70s when Ugandan President Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of the country's Indian population. “Her parents had to really fight to look after them and moved them from Africa to the U.K. with money rolled up inside toothpaste tubes because they had to hide it otherwise it would get taken from them,” she said. “Their story is a really inspiring one, and it makes me realize how lucky I am.”

Her mother has worked as a nurse and flight attendant, while her father was an entrepreneur and show booker, per The Guardian. While Charli described her relationship with her parents as “kinda sticky,” they’ve been very supportive of her music career, even attending raves with her when her career was just getting started as a young teen who got noticed on MySpace. 

“My mum, in particular, was terrified,” Charli told GQ in May 2024. “She grew up in Uganda and never really drank, never smoked a cigarette. She came from a Muslim family where the idea of a 14-year-old going to a rave was completely alien.”

At one of those early gigs, Charli revealed in a 2014 interview with ITN that someone had tried to sell her dad drugs, but he hilariously misunderstood the situation. “Someone tried to sell my dad MDMA but he thought they said MDF, as in the flooring,” she said. “So he was like ‘Yeah, I don’t have any room in my car right now but I would love to purchase some MDF from you.’ … It was just a weird miscommunication thing.”

From attending raves with their daughter to giving her a loan to record her first album in 2007, Charli XCX’s parents are the definition of supportive, something she’s acknowledged often in interviews. “They’ve been super supportive … they’ve been really cool,” Charli told Highsnobiety in 2018. “It definitely was like a little bit surreal, though, to see them in a rave. I never really envisioned that would happen.”