Miley Cyrus Says 'Wrecking Ball' 'Doesn't Reflect' Who She Is Now, But She's 'Grateful Every Day' for the Song

Miley Cyrus has come a long way since her “Wrecking Ball” days.

Though the star recently admitted she’s “never living down” the music video for the 2013 hit — which featured her licking a sledgehammer while swinging on a wrecking ball naked — her feelings aren’t so harsh when it comes to the song behind it.

“I should be grateful every f—ing day for that song, and I am,” Cyrus, 24, said in an interview for the new issue of NME Magazine, on stands Friday. “I think people look at things that they’ve done and there is this sense of shame, or ‘I wish I wouldn’t have done that’ — not because I’m naked, by the way. It’s because I feel like I’m in a deeper songwriting place.”

“Lyrically, I’m less impressed with that song right now,” she continued. “I feel like it doesn’t reflect who I am now, but that’s fine because it’s not supposed to. I’m sure I’ll say the same thing about this record at some point.”

After releasing the pop-heavy Bangerz in 2013 and trippy Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz in 2015, Cyrus’ forthcoming new album Younger Now (out Sept. 29) sees the star in a new era and embracing her Nashville roots.

“For Bangerz I was so one way, and I did that on Dead Petz too,” she said. “‘Malibu’ and ‘Younger Now’ are obviously two very different visuals in a way, but what binds them together is that they are both me. Now, I think I have more of an open mind.”

She added: “I don’t have to be so locked into myself because then I’m putting those walls and borders around myself that I tell everyone else not to give in to.”

Cyrus recognizes that Dead Petz isn’t “a record for everyone,” and she made sure not to make “people less mentally available to listen” to her music this time around.

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Not only is Younger Now meant to make a statement on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, but the album will also get political with tracks like one that Cyrus and her godmother Dolly Parton co-wrote, “Rainbowland.”

“One line is such a Dolly lyric – it says, ‘We are rainbows, me and you, every color, every hue,'” she said. “It’s about all these different races and genders and religions, if we all did come together to create and said, ‘Hey, we’re different, that’s awesome, let’s not change to be the same, but let’s come together anyway.’ Because a rainbow’s not a rainbow without all the different colors.”

One track on the album, “Inspired,” was even written for Hillary Clinton.

“I’m not fighting fire with fire, hate with hate — I’m fighting hate with love,” she said. “I’m doing a concert this week in Vegas and for ‘Party In the USA’ the screens will say ‘education,’ ‘healthcare, ‘equality’, ‘justice’, ‘freedom’, ‘liberation’, and ‘expression.’ These things are what make up our country. It’s not a party in the USA if it’s filled with hate, discrimination, walls, [and] violence.”

Cyrus was one of the many to say she would leave the country if Donald Trump were to be elected president, but despite the outcome, she’s standing firmly by her decision not to.

“I’m not leaving the country, that’s dumb,” Cyrus says. “Because that’s me abandoning my country when I think I’ve got a good thing to say to my country. And trust me, I hear every day on my Instagram, ‘Just leave already! When are you going to leave?’ Wherever I am, my voice is going to be heard, and I’ll make sure of it.”