“Stay With Me”: Smith wowed an audience likely seeing him for the first time with this stunning cut on “Saturday Night Live.” In it, he turns a desperate plea for a one-night stand to stay into an eloquent statement on being a sensitive man who knows what he wants, but has no illusions that he’ll get it. Here lie the first hints of trouble in Smith’s relationship, from a dream that he was mugged outside his beloved’s house to the worse realization that he dared think his love was reciprocated.
“Good Thing”: Beginning with swelling strings that spill into a muted guitar line like teardrops breaking (yes, it’s that dramatic), the second track is the real beginning of the end that “In the Lonely Hour” is all about. The first official single is a bit of a bait-and-switch: those kinds of synthesizers don’t set the tone for the record but reappear until the very end, and at first listen it’s easy to focus on the blaring chorus and miss the “I don’t have” that sneaks up beforehand. “Money On My Mind”: “Money On My Mind” kicks off the album on a sprightly note, with a crisp, skittering backbeat and chopped-up backing exhalations. “After writing the album,” he told Billboard, “I felt I’d given everything out, and I’m willing to keep doing that with my music for the rest of my life.” Here’s to seeing how he keeps pouring his heart out. Every story of unrequited love that’s been put to song is powerful in its own right, but Smith’s admission that the object of his affection was a man - besides being a brave thing to do - put to rest any speculation of his sexuality and set an emotionally open tenor for the rest of his career.
Thank you so much for breaking my heart because you got me four Grammys.Lana Del Rey, Sam Smith, Linkin Park All Have Super Sales Week AheadĪnd Smith bares more than his vocal cords on this record. He said, “I want to thank the man who this record is about who I fell in love with last year. In his acceptance speech, Sam did not mention anything about the lawsuit. In fact it did win Best Song of the Year for 2014, the songwriter’s award, as well as Best Record, which goes to the artist and producer. Regardless of that change, however, the Recording Academy, which gives out Grammys, announced that if the song won any awards, it would go to only the original writers. Both Tom and Jeff Lynne were added to the song as co-writers. The judgement was in Petty’s favor Although Sam and his co-writers said this was unintentional, they didn’t oppose the settlement.
It felt like it completely came through, like something greater was happening.īecause of its melodic similarity to Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” which Petty wrote with Jeff Lynne for Full Moon Fever, Tom’s publisher sued Sam’s publisher. It happened so simply that it felt like it wasn’t even us writing it. You don’t even love them, you don’t really fancy them that much, it’s just nice to have someone in the bed next to you.” It’s about the moment in the morning after a one night stand, where the person you are with leaves your house, and you are left by yourself, and it’s just a second, where you are just like: ‘ I wish, I wish‘. “It was Jimmy who came up with the idea of `stay with me,`” said Sam,” and that immediately got me thinking of a one-night stand, and my views on that. “It came when we were in the studio Will was on piano, playing those three chords, and Jimmy got on drums.” “That’s the way all my songs are written,” said Smith. The song, he said, came all at once, working with Napier and Phillips at a recording studio on Old Street in Central London. From his debut album in 2014, In the Lonely Hour, it’s the song that brought him to the world. Startling in its simplicity, both reverent and anthemic with gospel fever, “Stay With Me,” written by Sam Smith with Will Phillips and Jimmy Napier, was Smith’s first hit.