Song Exploder - Lianne La Havas - Can't Fight

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Lianne La Havas is a singer and songwriter from London. She’s been nominated for a Grammy and a Brit award, and in 2020, she released her third album. In this episode, she breaks down her song "Can’t Fight," and traces its evolution — along with her own evolution – over several years. For more, visit songexploder.net/lianne-la-havas.

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. Leanne Lahavas is a singer and songwriter from London. She's been nominated for a Grammy and a Brit Award, and in 2020, she released her third album. In this episode, she breaks down her song Can't Fight and traces its evolution, along with her own evolution, over several years. My name is Leanne LaHavas. idea first came into my head about seven or eight years ago. My boyfriend at the time was a bass player and he was showing me all these videos of different bass players that he liked and

Victor Wooten came up and this song he had called Me and My Bass Guitar. It's just the most amazing use of the bass. So basically my boyfriend, was teaching me a version of it that could be played on guitar. So I was having loads of fun, like playing the guitar in a new way. Then, yeah, I remember just sitting alone, as I do, in my house with a cup of tea. And I just started playing a nice chord that I liked, but I had the muscle memory from learning this Victor Wooten piece. So then a sort of hammer-on percussive riff started happening with the chord that I liked. When I write a guitar part, it can't be anything that doesn't challenge me, because I like

feeling that challenge when I'm singing and playing. It kind of evokes writing in me. It makes me more likely to want to write to something. I started playing guitar when I was 18 years old, So just over 13 years ago now, the only reason I didn't learn guitar as an actual child was because I didn't believe from what I saw that any girls were playing guitar. It was mostly boys that I saw playing guitar, so that made me not want to do it. But I saw girls playing piano and it felt accessible to me. And so that became my hobby and my outlet. And then it wasn't until 18. inspired by women playing guitar. I just, I wanted to learn everything. And it just made me really love it so much. You know, I remember when I figured out the first rhythm that I learned,

I just remember being so deeply satisfied in a new way. I said, if I can do that with this rhythm, it means I can do that with another rhythm and another one and another one. So as I started writing more and more songs, I used to try and look for a new rhythm for every song that I wrote so that none of them would be the same. I don't like waste. If there's a piece of guitar or a melody or some words that haven't been used yet in something, then I've got this idea that I'm going to use everything up before I make a new thing. But basically, it was just that one chord, just something I play when I'm practicing or when I'm warming up because it just feels nice under the fingers.

And it stayed like that for all these years until I was in a session with Muramasa and it was just figuring out where we should start. Muramasa, or Alex, is a wonderful chap. I discovered his music five years ago, And I was like, who the hell is that? That's amazing. I love the sound.

I love the rhythm. So I just asked to meet him. And I ended up doing a session with him. And there was like immediate trust. And when I played him that riff, that's when he said, oh, we should record that. We should make something out of that. So he took my guitar and then started overdubbing another part on top of my riff, the bit that goes, do-do, do-do, do-dun, do-dun, do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-

or something like that. I guess he found the bass line. And when he did that, it signalled what the rest of the chords should be, and then that's what made it a verse. It's as simple as that, because for seven years, I had that riff, not knowing what to do with it, but as soon as you put a couple of bass notes on it, it turns it into another thing. So I was finally able to stand outside of it and work with it.

The chords on the chorus stand out because one of them was a chord that I had just learnt, and this chord is my new favourite chord. It's the first chord of that. I don't know the name of it. This is my big dirty secret that I'm having. hiding. I'm sorry, jazz police. I'm sorry, now I'm just thinking about all of the jazz people who were just shouting at their phones telling me what this chord is. Please send me a tweet at

Leanne La Havas. Thank you. It just feels like a huge relief meeting someone like Alex. When you meet someone who gets you, it's just a really big deal. I remember doing the chorus and the melody we were even sort of accidentally both singing the same thing in the same place. I think the first time I thought about lyrics was probably when we were humming to ourselves getting the track into a good place to be sung on. But at the time of writing this song, I was going through, I'm just going to say it. I was in a very toxic relationship and it was very hard for me in a lot of ways. I just felt a bit powerless in many respects. It took a lot of my energy.

It took a lot of my confidence away. And there was definitely a lot of uncertainty, whether we would stay together or whether we wouldn't. Well, basically, I tried to leave many times and couldn't. Or for whatever reason, it was very hard, and I would always go back. But this is the kind of beginning of noticing, hang on, something is terribly wrong here. Why do I feel so helpless? Why am I always anxious? And I guess this song was like the last,

inkling of the positive, like when I was still looking at it through rose-tinted lenses, when to me in my head it wasn't as toxic as it actually was. I had some space, basically, when I had this session with Alex. Safe space, I guess, you know. I didn't have anything to prove to anyone. So the concept of can't fight, it was like, there's still a part of me that thinks of it fondly and perhaps I should give it one more chance. And so that is basically where the premise came from for the rest of the lyric.

Alex and I felt pretty good about it and we just sort of knew when to leave it. But this song for me was one of those curveball ones. Basically, I felt like the melody was quite, for lack of a better term, poppy. It felt quite accessible more than I may be comfortable with. And that is something I had to accept that I was the creator of this melody and these chords. Therefore, or it's okay that they've come out this way. I went through this phase of not listening to it, and then I went through a phase of not being able to stop listening to it. I found it extremely uplifting,

because maybe the optimism in the music helped it to be easier to express difficult feelings. Sometimes when the music is also very melancholic, and you're talking about something really dark, maybe that's too much. So part of that helped to keep it from slipping into a very despairing mood. So I did the writing of the lyrics with my long-time writing partner and collaborator, Mr Matt Hales, aka Aqualung.

He's really good at helping me flesh things out and make them a real thing. And I brought him these recordings and I said, okay, here's the vague outline. And I explained everything to Matt. I said, I don't know we broke up again and then we got back to care again. And we just wrote all the words and recorded it all at Real World Studios. It seems that I won't be warned. And certainly I saw a sign. I raged like a woman scorned.

The lyrics are quite serious, you know. It's like seems like I won't be warned. And certainly I saw a sign. I raged like a woman scorned after I had broken up again. But that one felt more final. It wasn't final. But it was just enough to capture the essence of how I was feeling at the time. The things that I want.

they always seem to be at odds on thee why when did heaven get this heavy everything's right until it's wrong but something about you feels like a home baby you know that you got me gone you're pulling me back and I was saying exactly how I felt but singing it in this way that made it feel good for me I was very much over it.

But the chorus had already been written. So we kept the can't fight away this love and it just made sense the getting back together in the back and forth because it wasn't over. I knew it wasn't really over at that point. I can't fight away this love. I knew that I should give you up. I tried to wrong but got my heart stop.

I can't fight away this love. In the summer after that, I did finally say goodbye and I was in a new headspace. It's like as soon as I made that decision for good, things started getting done and I felt really good about everything and confident and capable. So I got my band involved, my bass player and drummer. Our approach was to keep it very minimal. to begin with. And we tried just adding a few little clicky rimshot things. But it was during the moment where my drummer was getting ready to do his take,

he was playing a really great beat just in that moments before you press record. And I was like, wait, that's it. That's the beat. The strings were arranged by a lovely chap named Davida. In the original demo there are these programmed harps that I did with Muramasa but that ended up not quite fitting. So we wanted something to fill that space. I think it brings a really nice drama and a seriousness to it,

a sort of sophistication just for the final part of the song. Now that I know what I know about the nature of toxic relationships and abusive relationships, is very obvious to me now why certain things happened and why I may have behaved that way. But no, at the time I just thought I needed to try harder. I have forgiven myself, but the girl in the song it makes me want to pick her up and shake her.

You know, if only you'd known what you know now, but at the same time, if I did, that song wouldn't exist. And I wouldn't have had all the pleasure I got from making it. None of that would exist either. This was my way of making it beautiful. That's why I don't think any ideas are useless or should be thrown away. Any sessions that I do that maybe weren't fruitful. I don't think that they were unnecessary because it made me learn something.

the happiest that I ever am is when I'm making songs. So strangely, this process for me was one of the happiest times of my entire life. But what it's about is almost certainly the darkest time in my entire life. But music offered me that pleasurable safe space where I could be confident. I could be myself. Now here's Can't Fight by Leanne La Hava. in its entirety. Or visit songexploder.net.

You'll find links to buy or stream can't fight, and you can 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 Robe. 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 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 songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploader.net slash live. Thanks. This episode was made by me with editing help from Tini Lieberson and Casey Deal, artwork by Carlos Lerma, and music clearance by Kathleen Smith.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia. And 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 and Instagram at SongExploder. My name is Rishi Kesh, Hereway. Thanks for listening.