Miley Cyrus compares the demo and final version of "Flowers", explaining how the stripped-back demo sounds melancholy while the released track feels celebratory. The lyrics shift from tentative self-convincing in the first chorus to confident self-empowerment by the third, capturing a "fake it till you make it" arc.
The demo of "Flowers" is pretty different from what ended up being released to the world as this, like, celebratory song. It actually is more melancholy. Really, when you strip away all the sounds and all the big harmonies, there's a lot of sadness to it. But I've always— I've liked the idea of fake it till you make it. And on the first chorus, I'm kind of telling myself, and I'm trying to convince myself And by the third chorus, you can hear that there's a confidence, that I finally believe it. And I think you can hear that a lot in the demo because everything is just stripped away, so you can really hear the kind of evolution of that song.
