Song Exploder - Dua Lipa - Levitating

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

Dua Lipa is a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter from London. Her second album, Future Nostalgia, came out in March 2020. It hit #1 on the charts in thirteen countries, and it was shortlisted for the UK’s Mercury Prize. Dua co-wrote the song "Levitating" with some of her closest collaborators, including producer Stephen Kozmeniuk, AKA Koz. In this episode, Dua and Koz break down “Levitating” and how Dua’s childhood memories shaped its sound. songexploder.net/dua-lipa

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 Hirwe. This episode contains explicit language. Duolipa is a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter from London. Her second album, Future Nostalgia, came out in March 2020. It hit number one on the charts in 13 countries, and it was shortlisted for the UK's Mercury Prize. One of the songs on the record is Levitating. Dua co-wrote it with some of her closest collaborators,

including producer Stephen Cosmanek, aka Cause. In this episode, Doa and Cause breakdown levitating and explain how Dua's childhood memories shaped the song's sound. My name's Dua Leeper. The day I wrote this song, I actually know the exact date. Levitating was created on the 28th of August, 2018. I guess I had just started writing for the second record still figuring out where I wanted to go with it,

but knowing what my album title was going to be, which is future nostalgia. And I knew I wanted to touch on my childhood influences, and a lot of my childhood influences are really songs and music that my parents listen to. A lot of Jamiroquai, Prince, Blondie. And when those songs are played now, that just brings back such a rush of fun and exciting,

like emotions and all I want to do is dance and it immediately takes me back to when I was a kid and I wanted to play on that emotion and that feeling and those memories and create something with like a fresh, modern twist. I'm Cause. I'm the producer of levitating.

Cause is such an incredible instrumentalist and producer and artist in his own right and we've worked together for a really long time. Usually before we go into work, I'll spend a couple weeks or a month just like coming up with ideas to play when we hit the studio. Before the session, I'd kind of like sent him like some notes and some stuff that I've been inspired by.

She definitely had the idea of blending a lot of old stuff with new stuff. And I just thought like the best way to reinterpret the past was to just use old instruments. I had been looking for this synth forever called the Roland VP 330. I'd probably been looking for six, seven, eight years. And then one day I found it in Tokyo. got it back to Toronto. I just plugged it in. And literally the first thing I played

was what turned into levitating. The whole song was basically just built around that one patch, you know? This great synthetic choir sound. It was the first thing I play on it, and I just happened to be recording because sometimes I feel that's just the best time to catch something.

And then just kind of looped it and started building a song around it. And then it has like a sound that's like analog strings, and that's also that synth. You know, it's like, You don't want a keyboard that does like 100 things. You want one that does just a couple things really well.

It just has like a vibe and a sound. I was kind of thinking it would be cool to do it as kind of like a slinky disco track. It was pretty simple. A lot of these times you don't build them out too much. You just build out like just a great vibe to kind of write to. And then forget about them until you hit the studio and then hit play. I wrote Levitating. I was some of my close friends and collaborators.

Sarah Hudson, Coffee, Clarence, Jr. and Cos. And I've worked with all three of them for so long. And coffee is brilliant with melodies. And Sarah is very much like a fairy godmother, and she starts every session with a tarot reading. It would be like another way of opening up and talking about like our experiences of what was going on in life. And it instantly changes the energy in the room.

It's always a good laugh with all. all of us. But sessions are an interesting thing because it's actually quite nerve-wracking. And so when we went to the studio, he was like, okay, he's like, I have some tracks. He's like, I'd love to, like, play some stuff that I've been working on with, like, you and mind and what you kind of told me. I think maybe Lovitating was one of the first tracks he played. Someone would have their phone out. And just as you were playing the beats and stuff, like, you get your immediate reaction to melody and you just kind of capture it. just so you don't forget it when you go back to it.

This one stemmed pretty heavily from Dua in the room. It can happen so many different ways. People just start singing something. But I remember like Dua really led this one. Almost immediately we went into the melody of and then you kind of hear Sarah in the background going, oh my God. It came so naturally and we were just ready to go

and it just felt like such an easy, like yes, that's what we're going into. She was like instant on the melody. You know, you make it up along the way, but it's just all about like the feeling. We had the visual of being in like an Austin Powers movie. And having Mike Myers just somehow like doing some random levitating dance that we were just making up. That was just like helping give us like a mood while we were writing the lyrics. We ordered these donuts because I was like, how are we going to spice this up? And so I bought some donuts.

We all had total, like, sugar rush and just started writing. And I think that we were literally levitating from the sugar rush. We had such, like, a good feeling, like, going into that song. If you want to run away with me, I know a galaxy, and I could take you for a ride. I had a premonition that we fell into a rhythm where the music don't stop for life. I recorded my vocals on the same day. I do all the lead vocals and then some backing vocals. You want me, I want you, baby.

My sugar boo, I'm levitating. We have the lyric Sugar Boo, which is quite funny because it's something that we call each other and thought it would be kind of a cute thing to put in, but it's more something that we're like, we say as a funny joke. And I was like, are we sure we want to put this in the song? and it just seemed like such a funny, cute thing

and an ode to our friendship. I love collaborating and creating such fun personal relationships with the people that I'm writing with because we can be so silly and be so open with each other because we have that friendship and that's really important.

I think a big part of songwriting is daring to be a bit shit, like I have an idea that's, you know, You don't know whether it's good or not, but you have to almost say it. Doing the second record, I knew that I wanted to make it with my friends and people that I'd worked with for so long and people that I was so comfortable around that I felt like I didn't have anything to prove.

And Coffee, he would help and, like, elevate the melodies and every time it would be better when Coffey gets his hands on it. Glitter in the sky, glitter in the eyes, shining just the way we are. I feel like we're forever, every time we get together. But whatever, let's get lost on Mars. I feel like we found ourselves dancing all the way through making this record, like non-stop. Even when we weren't completely finished, or even if we were having a writer's block,

or even if we were like still figuring it out and working on the production, like there wasn't a moment where we weren't just kind of feeling the music and having fun. I got you, moonlight, you're my starlight. I need you all night. Come on dance with me. The way the hook is actually thrown away like that, I think, is so cool in the song. I'm levitating. It's just like very like, it's not where you kind of like see the traditional hook. It didn't feel like it was trying too hard. It felt a bit more like laid back.

I'm levitating. And then I take it into like a more talky thing because I wanted to get my British accent out a bit more because a lot of the time when I sing, I guess people can't tell that I'm British. And I'm like, okay, this is, I have to. to take the melody out of it and I have to like talk, sing it. My love is like a rocket watch a blast off and I'm feeling so electric dance on arse off. And even if I wanted to I can't stop. And then we do some gang vocals. Those are always really funny to make them, like we wanted to make it like sound really yappy and really childish and the part that everyone can join in on and stuff.

We were all like quite in a tight area so we would put the mic on one side of the room so we would get like different sounds coming from different parts of the room and somebody would be closer and somebody would be further away. You want me, my sugar boom, I'm elevated. Not only do we just go in and do it with our own voices, but then we go in and put on voices and we do like, we create like personas every kind of vocal take that we do, like for the BVs, it's always really fun. It's all about like the ambience and creating like a whole world around the song

that's beyond just the lyrics and the vocal. It's about like the whole story, behind it. We did the holl song in a day. We just stormed through, got all the sections, cut everything in the room. Then like towards the end of it, we asked to work with Stuart Price. We produced Confessions on the Dance Four for Madonna and other great records, killers, Petshop Boys. And he just basically helped with like the fundamental bass groove. Like he kind of went in and brought more bounce to the song. And there's like a high drone scent at one point. I mean, it's such like a disco trope, but it's just like it was perfect,

and then it just kind of held through in this one section. He also, like, added a string part in the pre-chorus, which was really cool. Alongside that, Cos was a fan of this, like, talkbox player called Bosco Cantay. He, like, reached out for him to come in and play on the song as well. I love TalkBox. I think it's, like, the coolest thing in the world. There's like little bits layered here and there That just gives it like a cool like old school

80s zap funk Undetones into it It's a song that just makes me feel so good It makes me want to dance But then once it's out and into the world Almost that song doesn't belong to me anymore But it belongs to everyone that's come to see the show And the memories that it holds for them

And it excites me so much To get out and perform a song that has just kind of taken a life of its own and has created memories. Have you ever thought about the idea of a kid being in the position that you were in with your parents, like some kid out there who's listening to their parents listen to your music? You know, I haven't really thought of it that way. That would be so cool. It's really exciting to think that maybe someone could be influenced.

like that by my music, but it's also such a crazy thought. And now here's Levitating by Duolipa in its entirety. For more, visit SongExploder.net. You'll find links to buy or stream Levitating, and you can watch the music video for it. 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. Rishi Kesh, 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, Vagabond, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Weinrobe. 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 Manzukas, 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 were out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks.

Thanks to Troy and Kenta at Germano Studios in New York, where Duo was able to safely record her side of the interview. And special thanks to Tony Gervino. Song Exploder is made by me, Rishi Kesh Hirway, with producer Christian Coons, production assistant Olivia Wood, and illustrator Carlos Lerma. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of creative, independent podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. You can also follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Song Exploder. My name is Rishi Kesh Hirwe.

Thanks for listening.