Gigi Perez’s “Sailor Song” was one of the biggest sapphic hits of 2024. The folksy, desperately romantic track peaked at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100, racking up nearly 600 million streams on Spotify and 14 million views on its music video. But for Perez, the singer-songwriter behind the viral song, the song’s impact means much more than chart numbers.
In a new interview with ABC Audio, the 24-year-old artist shared that though “Sailor Song”’s popularity may have skyrocketed her career, it’s seeing the song’s impact on other queer people that’s had an especially profound effect on her life.
“To see the places that people have resonated with it, especially in the younger LGBT community, and what that kind of desperate love means to people universally, I mean, it’s changed my life,” Perez said.
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Perez also commented on the childhood celebrity crush that shaped the song’s lyrics. In the opening verse, Perez sings that lover was “looking like Anne Hathaway,” which she now said was meant to reflect “the concept of that ethereal beauty.”
“I mean, I grew up watching Anne Hathaway movies and, you know, I turned out to be gay,” she added. The Princess Diaries are simply too powerful.
Perez also shared that her younger sister was the song’s first-ever fan. While Perez was writing the song, her sister would listen through her bedroom door.
“She stops by when there’s something good,” Perez recalled. “She was like, ‘Gigi, that’s sick.’ I remember months before I posted it, she’d just be singing it and singing it.”
In April, Perez is setting out on a European and North American tour. Tickets are available at gigiperezmusic.com.
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