“I wrote Babette after a phone call with someone, where I felt I didn’t say any of the right things, they couldn’t hear me (literally and metaphorically), and ultimately, when I hung up, I felt that I didn’t fit into their life,” Malco says of the song. "I think the phone call is an analogy for not always knowing how to fit into social situations. I’m either too quiet and reserved or too loud and boisterous, but I can’t help it. I guess my personality can be a little too extreme in one direction or the other, and when I wrote Babette, I felt helpless to change it."

"Babette" follows Katie Malco's first song in four years, "Fatal Attraction", featuring US singer-songwriter Laura Stevenson.

Malco recorded Babette in between tours in the UK, US and Europe with Alvvays, Fenne Lily, Hurray for the Riff Raff, SOAK, Laura Stevenson, Peter Buck (REM), and Bob Mould (Husker Du). SOAK contributed their vocals to the track following a full US tour with Malco in 2023.

"Myself and Katie navigated our way through North America with little more than our drivers’ licences and delusion a year or so back," SOAK explains. "Night after night when Katie began ‘Babette’ the relief was immediate. Not only had we successfully located the venue and survived that day’s gas station ‘lunch’ but we were really doing the thing! We were playing music in towns with names we couldn’t pronounce to handfuls of welcoming strangers. What more could we have asked for?”

Later this year, Malco will embark on a UK tour with dates in Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, and a headline at London's Moth Club on 11 December.