Song Exploder - Andra Day - Forever Mine

Episode Date: August 15, 2016

Singer/songwriter Andra Day put out her first record in August 2015. Since then, she’s been invited by the Obamas to perform at the White House on multiple occasions, and the record was nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B album. In this episode, Andra breaks down her song Forever Mine along with the track’s producer, Rob Kleiner.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. Singer, songwriter, Andra Day, put out her first record in August 2015. Since then, she's been invited by the Obamas to perform at the White House on multiple occasions, and her record was nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B album. In this episode, Andrew breaks down her song Forever Mine, along with the tracks producer Rob Kleiner. I am Andrea Day and I co-wrote Forever Mine. I'm Rob Kleiner. I co-wrote and produced the song with Andrea.

Even before I had learned that I might be able to co-write with Andrea, there was kind of this cool buzz going on. She had just signed to Warner and she was doing some showcases. And I was like, wow, I hope I get to work with her. And then, you know, lucky enough, it happened. And yeah, they put us together for a reason. It sounded like a great musical fit. A lot of the work I had done before that

was like soul-inspired and a little bit of hip-hop. Yeah, it was sort of the mix of, the one thing I wanted was the mix of the old and the new. So it was kind of like, all right, cool, let's do this. I told Rob, I'm like, I love the flamingos, and I love the song. I only have eyes for you. My love must be a kind of blind love. And so that was really sort of the prototype for the song.

I want, I only have eyes for you, but I want it current. I want it with a little bit of, like, you know, like hip hop. If you break down the Flamingo's track, it's this 50s du-up thing, which has a lot of similarities to a lot of 50 do-wop songs, especially that triplet piano. And that's a cool thing that you don't really hear a lot in modern music. So it's like, well, I've got to do something like that. The piano happens to be a MIDI piano.

One thing you get good at being a bedroom producer is making MIDI stuff sound real and especially when you're going for like a cool vintage sound like that. I'm not a very good piano player but the triplets are so easy because they just kind of hang on C and they modulate a little bit. So I was able to, with my very limited piano skills,

keep the triplet going and then I wrote the bass line with my left hand, which later is played on the bass, not on the piano. That bass line is like a, upright bass sample and then like me playing an actual bass on top of that so it's kind of both fake and real It's sort of like 90s sort of garage Wu-Tang hip-hop sounding drums. You know a lot of those 50s style drum beats are kind of like hip-hop-esque They're not all that different the thing that makes this I guess modern to my ears is especially these drums they they have this kind of sampled chewed-up quality

in their tone, it loops in this four-bar fashion with these weird imperfections and air cutting in and out between the hits and stuff like that. That's what really gives it, I guess, this modern feel to my ear. I think I had almost the entire track done by the time Andra came, you know, at noon the next day. Yeah. And then he played it for me

and I was like, oh my gosh, it's everything I imagined and wanted it to be. That is awesome. And I had the title Forever Mine. Yeah. He came in, he's like, I have this, be forever mine. And I was like, bomb. I'm with it.

Lyrically and melodically, Andrew came up with pretty much the rest of it. I'll write tons of lyrics and lyrics and lyrics. The challenging part for me is actually to narrow down what's the concept and what's the line. You know what I mean? So it was actually really helpful. Be Forever Mine, you know, something really. Simple, and let's just figure it out from there. My heart has been a chessboard, making moves and losing out.

You know, when I heard the title, Be Forever Mine, asked the question, what does that mean to me? And then it's, you know, something I never want to let go of. Like the one thing, if I lose everything, what's the one thing that I want to hang on to? And it was my relationship with God. Because now I'm lost up in the cloud. In my mind, it was a love song to God, where I went from trying to find love in all these unhealthy places and then finally discovering this love that made me feel whole.

And so that's kind of the place that it came from, that sort of healing relationship. You know what I mean? I'm super lucky to get to write with some of the best vocalists on the planet. With Andra, the vocal production is hitting record and sitting back. That's about all there is to it. And if you notice in the hooks of the song, there's no copy and paste. She sings each hook totally different on each one, which is really cool to me also because like how many pop songs aren't just copied and pasted.

I just want you to be forever mine. I just want you to be to be yeah, forever my. I think I like the aspect of that because, you know, back, in the day, on tape, it was sort of like, you better get the take. You know what I mean? You better get it right and you do. But I think for me, if there's little changes in music as the song progresses, if it builds, like that's exciting to me as a listener. You know what I mean? So I think that's kind of where that came from as well. You know, we were working on the verses for a while. I think the last thing you wrote was the bridge. Yeah. You know, when a songwriter and producer in a

actually a really normal thing to do, is you have like a melodic idea, but you don't have the lyrics yet. The lyrics can take quite a bit of time. So you'll sing a mumble, just to get the melody idea down. And I remember her mumbling the bridge. I think something could be like,

something I want and I walk on the floor, and you give me some more, and it doesn't ever know, but something within everything and I want to be to that. Oh, and everything around. What's up. I know. And I remember hearing that and I mean basically like my mind exploded.

And like even now that's like the greatest part of the song to me. That's my favorite. The way that you move never seen it before. Looking for my head can't find it no more. You ran to my heart and I get that rewind. Winning the ground like a trojan hole. I come back, back, back every time. You got me shut like the mob when they rhyme.

Come out of nowhere. I'm blessed in my life. I just want you to be forever mine. In this part, I want the rap feel. but I can't rap. If I try to rap, the tone of my voice is just so like, girl, come on. This is not Sesame Street. So I was like, I gotta sing this, whatever, you know?

And so it was sort of like, okay, I have to write this in a way that it feels like rapping. You know what I'm saying? Because I love hip-hop. And so I was like, okay, let me put references in there. The lyrics are I come back, back, back every time. You got me shook like the mob when they rhyme. That's the Mob Deep reference, because I love that song Shook Ones by Mob Deep.

So I was like, how do I put this in here? Shout out to Mavdee. Shout out to Mavdee. I come back, back, back every time you got me shud like them off when they rhyme. Come out of nowhere come less in my life. I just want you to be forever mine. It's hip-hop and it's du-up.

And now, here's Forever Mine by Andradei in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.com. To learn more about Ander Day and her music, including a link to buy the song Forever Mine, and to watch the music video. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career.

And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope.

I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now.

You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishi-kash.co. Or just go to songexploader.net slash live. That's song-exploder.net slash live. Thanks. You can find all the past and future episodes of SongExploder at SongExploder. wherever you download podcasts. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary story-driven shows.

Learn more at Radiotopia.fm. My name is Rishi-Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening. Radiotopia.