Haim Reveals the Inspiration Behind Their New Album Title "I Quit"

Published: May 30, 2025

On Thursday, May 29, Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim appeared on the Sidetracked podcast to chat about their upcoming album, I Quit, which drops on June 20. During the conversation, they revealed that the title came from a film from their childhood, That Thing You Do!.

Alana Haim explained that the meaning of the title came from one of the film's final scenes, which slowly became an inside joke between the sisters. "There's this film, it's called That Thing You Do!, and it's about a one-hit wonder band in the 1960s," she began. "It was a movie that we all three very much connected on as very young children."

The musical-drama follows the rise of the Wonders, a small-time band from Erie, Pennsylvania, who are launched to superstardom after winning a local talent contest. The group ultimately splinters under the pressures of fame, ego, jealousy, and quickie Reno weddings, but they leave behind the legacy of the movie's titular song — a sparkling pop gem that set the charts on fire in the summer of 1964.

As Alana continued, she explained how in one of the final scenes, the Wonders' lead singer Jimmy (Johnathon Schaech), is instructed by their manager, Amos White (Tom Hanks), to come up with a second single that is "peppy and snappy."

“And Jimmy wants to record like a brooding, sad song. And he goes, ‘Peppy and snappy, okay?’” Alana sang as she and Este snapped together. “And so growing up, whenever we would have, like, check a mic, we would always go, like, 'I quit.'”

But as she continued, she revealed that as they were creating the album, each new track, they realized, "we were quitting something that made us feel better."

“One day, we're like, ‘Should we manage our album? I quit,’ ” she said, before noting she felt like they fell into a common songwriting practice when musicians’ subconscious are actually writing the music.

Ahead of releasing their first album in five years, Haim has dropped three singles, "Relationships," “Down to be wrong,” and “Everybody’s trying to figure me out.” On Friday, May 30, they release their fourth single, “Take me back.”

During their conversation on Sidetracked, Alana noted that while creating the album, “It was the first time, since basically we were all in that high school era, that we were all single.”

“I think it really brought up this nostalgic [feeling] for that time of when the last time we were single, when I was like 14, 15, 16. It's just been amazing to kind of like go back and relive those times, [and] get back into it.”

I Quit will be available on Friday, June 20.