Blood Orange pulls up to Genius to break down his track “Somewhere In Between.” Produced by Devonté Hynes, the track will appear on his upcoming project 'Essex Honey.' On today’s episode of Verified, he gets real about the emotional inspiration behind the record, adolescence to facing mortality, and so much more.
00:00Somewhere In Between, it's a song that is kind of at the center of this album I've made and
00:05essentially it's actually about my mother passing within that trying to find a center.
00:10The Somewhere In Between, it kind of has a dual meaning for me in the song.
00:14So first meaning is finding a center in the chaos that's happening.
00:18But also I've always kind of been looking at my youth and how that's informed me in life now.
00:25With my mother passing, it's now made me look at the other side of life a lot more.
00:30So, The Somewhere In Between is both of those.
00:40It started off actually with the guitar line.
00:43So the guitar line that's happening, it was something I kept playing and wasn't really sure if it was something I would eventually turn into a song.
00:51And one of my biggest influences are the Smiths, Prefab Sprout.
00:55And I started thinking about those worlds of music and what they mean to me and this idea of England, which is a big theme of this album.
01:04So I leant into it a bit more and that's when I started bringing in the harmonica and the melodica.
01:10When I started writing the lyrics, I knew there was going to be this kind of direct song and I felt musically, I always like to counter that and have it at least a little bit joyful.
01:20And not fully like this kind of heavy thing.
01:24And then it was actually quite easy.
01:25It was quite smooth.
01:26I'm playing every instrument on it.
01:29And then there's drums, which I am playing.
01:33But then there's another layer of more complicated drums played by my friend Dylan.
01:38And then there's back and vocals by Caroline Polachek.
01:41Dylan is such an amazing drummer.
01:43Caroline, we've had a recording relationship for so, so, so long, like 15 years or something.
01:49And I knew she would have ways of hearing the song and adding to it that I couldn't quite get to.
01:56I think we know each other so well now musically that it's quite like safe hands.
02:00I knew it would elevate.
02:08I think a lot about this idea of not just with my mother passing, but with friends that have passed.
02:14And I think maybe this is a universal thing, but you'll speak to people who have lost someone
02:18and they'll talk about all these things that they wish they'd done.
02:21There are regrets or moments that you could have relived or things you could have done differently.
02:26It's like, you're always going to think that.
02:27And so this idea of in the middle of your life, could you have taken some more time?
02:30It's like, there is no more time.
02:32Like the life is the time.
02:33And so that is the thing.
02:35So I kind of wanted to like set the stage for that.
02:38And if it's nothing, like they said, it's somewhere in between.
02:41This middle ground of emotion that you can often feel between grief and joy, you know,
02:46the idea of do you mourn the loss of someone or do you celebrate their life or people clinging
02:52on to their childhood or are they looking towards building some kind of future?
02:58Those dualities interest me.
03:01You know, there's no answer, but it's more just, I'm just kind of looking at these things.
03:05So I surrender to being just a body, tired limbs.
03:10I think something quite beautiful to surrendering to life and surrendering to your loved ones.
03:16After my mum passed, there's always like a calm or as if like the window gets cleaned.
03:21Like suddenly there's a sense of seeing things in a way that is very exact and direct.
03:29I was able to almost be in my body a bit more.
03:32I think I'd always been rushing through things a lot in life.
03:34And in this moment, I was somewhat able to surrender.
03:38And I could feel my body just kind of be and fall and feeling tired.
03:43And it's this thought process of everything is very accessible.
03:46And I think within that, it can create an inability to actually live the life
03:51that you're trying to access.
03:53That's kind of what that is about.
03:55When the world is in your hand, you can't be inside of it.
03:57In a magnitude and wide array of privileged positions.
04:01When I say that, I'm saying quite a big spectrum, specifically Western.
04:05People can kind of do anything or have anything.
04:08And when I say this, I'm not above it.
04:10I'm part of the issue.
04:12I'm ordering coffees, you know what I mean?
04:13Like delivered.
04:15This is like a real thing.
04:16I just wanted to try in a very simple way, in like two lines, to say how it's not really living.
04:21It's ease, but it's not necessarily life.
04:24Light was just for hope and it keeps flickering.
04:28I just want to see again.
04:29I found that if you write very, very literal words about a specific situation,
04:36you can kind of find some universal in it.
04:38And that was even true of me.
04:40Like I wrote literally and I found universal within it.
04:42So I'm thinking about being in a hospital, in a hospital I was really in,
04:47and the light was actually flickering.
04:49In that moment, you're just thinking about wanting a happy, bright outcome.
04:55I'm not spiritual, you know, I'm not really that,
04:58but I'm very, very interested in it and always have been in my life.
05:02You know, I have this thing where I find it quite a beautiful thing.
05:05I started in this last year, seeing how people will hold on to faith and hold on to light
05:13and how that is such a beautiful, hopeful thing.
05:15And it was, I was quite jealous that people had this.
05:19So that light, there's a lot of talking about light and vision and seeing and looking.
05:24And it's talking about kind of all of those things.
05:35Another thing I've realized in the last couple of years is how ill prepared the Western world is
05:41in regards to death and this illusion that I think we walk through life thinking it doesn't exist,
05:48essentially.
05:49I know there are practices in the world that aren't like that.
05:52So it was this thing of being awoken and having to like really face that there's a real life
05:59and I'm lying to myself and a lot of us are lying to ourselves.
06:02The I just want to see again is this idea of like, okay, well,
06:06how can I like almost get my first sight of life again?
06:11I grew up in Essex.
06:14The first instrument I learned was cello.
06:16So that was my first introduction to music.
06:18It was amazing that then it eventually became this root of the album that kind of kept centering
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