- 7 weeks ago
Laufey and her producer Spencer Stewart take us into the production of her viral hit "Lover Girl" and what inspired the song.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00All of these strings you're hearing are cello, all played by Leve.
00:03If my voice were an instrument, it would definitely be a cello.
00:06Hi, I'm Leve.
00:08And I'm Spencer Stewart.
00:09And we're going to take you behind the song, Lover Girl.
00:14The skyscraper's causing vertigo.
00:19We've been working together for, since, I mean, we did my first album together.
00:22So for a very long time, pretty much my whole musical career.
00:26I wrote this song while I was on tour in Japan.
00:28It was just something that kind of came out of me.
00:30I was staying in this hotel room that was on a really, really high floor.
00:34And I kind of felt like I was getting vertigo.
00:36And I was really missing a certain someone.
00:38And I was like, okay, this is, I need to write.
00:41It was one of those moments where I needed to, like, get the feelings out in song.
00:45So I came back home and had a session with Spencer and showed him the song.
00:50And he immediately had some ideas.
00:53It was one of those rare songs that it sounds so complete in the recorded rendition.
00:59Like, there are some songs where a voice memo, I'm like, was that better, you know?
01:02But this is one of those songs that I immediately was, like, the production and everything just
01:07really made it so unique.
01:09And it made me love the song more.
01:11I've always been this type of person that thought I'd never fall in love.
01:15Like, so many of my songs are about how, like, I'm known as the falling behind girl and a
01:20lot of songs of unrequited love.
01:22This one's different in that it's about being in love and how it can make you a little bit
01:27crazy.
01:27And it's kind of looking back and being like, oh, my God, I've become this person that
01:31I used to make fun of, this lovey-dovey, loopy girl.
01:35I live very far away from my family, live far away from my sister.
01:39And I've always thought so much of how it can be a bit of a curse to love someone because
01:44it means you miss them when they're far away and they can hurt you.
01:47And so I kind of just wanted to write a song that described that feeling well.
01:52You always receive my stupid ideas so well.
01:55Like, I literally came into this album being like, Spencer, ding-dong, tick-tock.
02:00This is very true.
02:01Like, tick-tick-tick and, like, banging on, like, random walls being like, I feel like this
02:05is the sound we need to make.
02:07And I, like, you always take it from just that stupid sound idea to, you always find
02:12the sound, which is really fascinating.
02:13I'm in a reckless fever, love-struck girl, I tease her.
02:19I mean, it starts like this.
02:20I mean, it starts phenomenally.
02:26It's claps.
02:27It's a literal clap, yeah.
02:28It's us in my home studio just clapping around a microphone.
02:32Running around the room clapping.
02:33You know, I had just come off a tour when I was writing this and was thinking so much
02:38about what I could almost give the audience.
02:41My audience is so, like, they sing along and they're so passionate and they're all very
02:47musical.
02:48And I was like, I want to, like, give them some sort of call and response, something to
02:53do.
02:54And so these claps were kind of, you know, the perfect solution to that.
02:58Yeah.
02:58The first thing you're going to hear at a Le'Ve concert when you play Lover Girl, presumably,
03:02is this.
03:03That's the wrong space bar.
03:09And that's your cue.
03:10It's kind of like, you know, when you're in elementary school and the teacher goes,
03:13and then everyone else has to go, is this an American thing?
03:16I don't know.
03:17But I like that idea of, like, your fans are like, what's the next song going to be?
03:19And then they hear that and it's like a cue to them to get into action.
03:23Yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:24I don't want to miss my part.
03:24The coolest part about this intro is the flutes.
03:27That's kind of what you're hearing play these chords.
03:32We lack woodwind playing abilities.
03:35This is the one thing that we lack yet.
03:36This is the one thing.
03:38We have the whole band and we have a string section.
03:40That's right.
03:41But we have...
03:42We have to outsource our woodwinds.
03:43We have ambitions with wind that we can't quite execute ourselves yet.
03:48Unfortunately.
03:49Yes.
03:49Yeah, yet.
03:49Big yet.
03:50Yet.
03:50I really wanted, like, a very full rhythmic sound.
04:01Like, I wanted these kind of percussion instruments to really fill into all the gaps.
04:07I think that was, like, how I was describing it to you.
04:09I just, like, wanted there to be this, like, kind of constant motion and, like...
04:13Absolutely.
04:13I think what creates that motion, too, is this idea of, like, three against four.
04:18That clave...
04:20It's in three, four, and then the rest of the band's in four, four.
04:25One, two, three.
04:26One, two, three.
04:27One, two, three.
04:28So it repeats every three beats, whereas the rest of the band repeats every four beats.
04:32You know, it's in four, four.
04:34And I think that tension...
04:37I mean, it kind of adds to the swirl of your mind, too.
04:39Yeah, well, the song is, like, about feeling crazy, and it's about having, like, feeling vertigo.
04:45So we wanted to create this sense of, like, instability throughout the whole song, throughout the whole album, honestly.
04:51Absolutely, yes.
04:51But especially in this song.
04:53So, you know, three against four is one of the best ways to kind of...
04:56You're never really settled in either rhythm.
04:59It's a little disorienting.
05:00It's very disorienting.
05:01So if we listen to the guitar and the piano together, that'll be a good demonstration of that idea.
05:09Like, they're dancing together, but they're not totally in agreement.
05:13We got Le-Ve playing some instruments she never played on this album before.
05:15I got her playing upright bass.
05:17We had her playing alleged bass.
05:18I have footage of this.
05:19She engineers the sessions when I'm unable to because I have instruments in my hand.
05:24Depending on the song, Le-Ve has a certain touch on piano or guitar that is going to express the emotion of the song much better, you know, and vice versa.
05:30It always really depends on the song.
05:33I feel like the songs that need to be super steady, I need you to play because I play from my heart and I cannot be bound to a click.
05:41Honestly, anything with click, you are playing because you are stable.
05:45This might be true.
05:46I'm a stable guy.
05:47And anything without click, I'm like...
05:49And then we have to, like, create a click.
05:50I think that's true, but you're selling yourself short because you have great rhythm, but I'll take the compliment.
05:56Our rule for production, basically, is, like, it starts from Le-Ve playing it on piano or guitar, and then if either one of us is hearing something, we just keep adding until we're not hearing anymore.
06:05And that's literally how a song gets finished.
06:07That's literally it.
06:07And sometimes you don't hear anything in the beginning, and it just needs to be a piano vocal or a guitar vocal.
06:12Or we add some strings towards the end or grow it.
06:15I always feel like I'm writing for myself first because it is so journalistic.
06:19Like, it feels, yeah, it feels like no one's going to hear it for a little bit until I come running into the studio, and I'm like, I got it!
06:28Totally.
06:29Or usually I'm like, I don't know.
06:31I don't know.
06:31It's just an idea.
06:32I don't know.
06:32It might be bad.
06:34This string entrance is cool.
06:35It is.
06:36Because it imitates your voice, right?
06:38This alone means 20 million ways to cope without you.
06:4620 million ways to cope without you.
06:53So all of these strings you're hearing are cello, all played by Le-Ve.
06:57If my voice were an instrument, it would definitely be a cello.
07:00It's like, I play cello the same way I sing, and I very much see cello as important of an instrument to me as my voice is in the recordings.
07:09So I really, I think we spend more time on cello than we spend on voice.
07:13Yeah, because you're kind of like three takes on vocals, and then we're done.
07:16So this is all Le-Ve, all these different beautiful waveforms.
07:21If you zoom out, though, you can see that it doesn't end there.
07:25We have, oh, it looks like we have some violin.
07:26There's a little of my twin sister playing violin.
07:28You definitely engineered the drums on this.
07:30Yeah, I definitely sat there asking for different noises.
07:33Kind of the best part of this.
07:35Yeah, exactly.
07:36Directing me.
07:41It's really minimal.
07:43There's not that much going on, but I think everything that's in there is doing something.
07:53Musically, I love the bridge.
07:55And it's so married to the lyrics.
07:57It is married to the lyrics.
07:59That's my favorite part, okay?
08:01The bridge lyrics are fun because it's like, in my head, like, that's a movie, right?
08:06And the lyrics are about a movie.
08:08And then the music feels like a film score as well.
08:11Totally.
08:11So I love that marriage of lyric and sound.
08:13One of the ways that we kind of create a dreamy quality is just layering a ton of vocals, bringing
08:25in reverb.
08:25The song is very dry up until this point.
08:28The vocal layers create this kind of like, the words that you're throwing out are like
08:33echoing against you and coming back to you.
08:36And it's the one moment in the song with BGVs.
08:39Totally.
08:40And anytime you have BGVs, it's like, is it Leve Sanger or is it like a Greek chorus?
08:44Is it like your subconscious?
08:46Right.
08:47I feel like this is your subconscious here.
08:48This is my subconscious for sure.
08:50Dream of the show.
08:51Ooh.
08:52Like Carpenters-y.
08:53Like, I love it.
08:56Think I see you in the wings.
09:00Think I see you in the wings.
09:01Think I see you in the wings.
09:03God, I'm hallucinating.
09:04And it's this moment where you're like on stage and you're like, wait, are they there?
09:09Is he there standing there?
09:10Or am I hallucinating?
09:12Like, am I actually going crazy?
09:14Leve says this to me all the time.
09:15I know you know what I'm hearing.
09:16Just, you know, just do it.
09:18So, we came up with this and it's like one of my favorite things on the album.
09:23Think I see you in the wings.
09:28God, I'm hallucinating.
09:34This is where it would have started when we found this idea.
09:37And so, you record the piano and then you figure out what colors you want to put on top.
09:40So, here's the piano stems.
09:42This is the structure of the bones that we then dressed up.
09:50And then it goes back to the dance here, right?
09:51One of the reasons it sounds so fluttery and movie-like is like we have another level of instability.
09:57It's like the trills, right?
09:59It literally doesn't settle.
10:00Like the reason it sounds, it's like birds or something.
10:03It's like instead of just playing the notes like the piano is, it's moving up and down from the note.
10:08So, it sounds like it's flying and it's like it sounds a little bit, it's like a little bit anxious.
10:14Because this is where union really shines, is the trills.
10:26I wanted this really dry cut from the dramatic, verbed out kind of bridge back into the song.
10:35There was such a humor to that for me because at the end of the day, when you're having like a breakdown, you kind of just have to like smile through it.
10:42I thought this going just straight back into it like that was really funny.
10:46Like it's sarcastic to me.
10:48Totally.
10:56There's a different chord in this final chorus, which I think is like, it just twists you a little bit more.
11:03It's like you think you know what you're expecting.
11:05You're hearing the chorus for the third time around, but we never repeat a chorus exactly the same.
11:09Never, never, never.
11:12It gives it a slightly different connotation, doesn't it?
11:20Yeah, it feels like a different chorus because of that.
11:23Totally.
11:24It feels like melancholic.
11:26Yeah.
11:27You know?
11:27Yeah, it is a wistful chord, that one.
11:29The strings enter with a new idea here in the third chorus as well.
11:33With this.
11:34And landing on that new chord.
11:40Oh my gosh.
11:41It's so juicy.
11:41This is how we are in the studio though.
11:43Like when we play back what we're making, we're just like, we're like, we love this so much.
11:48Yeah.
11:48Like I still hear this and I'm like, oh my God, I love it.
11:51I know.
11:55You weren't expecting that one, were you?
11:56It's like this constant tension that I feel like no matter what song we're making, we always have that element where you're like, it's just a line that keeps going and keeps going.
12:10Right.
12:10A lot of that's just your melodies though.
12:12I do love a melody that never ends.
12:14Yeah.
12:15Like you have melodies that tell a story in and of themselves.
12:17So it's good when you play it for me the first time on guitar in a room.
12:21And sometimes that is the best version of the song ready.
12:23And that's what it is.
12:26And that's what it is.
Recommended
5:38
|
Up next
0:49
2:20:49
32:28
1:59:35
2:14:45
55:36
1:01:43
3:12
17:39
10:14
19:14
0:25
Be the first to comment