Who would James Arthur have given Safe Inside to if he didn't sing it himself?
Ed Sheeran, please collaborate with James Arthur!
He鈥檚 too shy to ask you see...
If you were listening to the this morning, you’ll know that James Arthur popped in to chat to Grimmy about his new single, Safe Inside. Well, in case you didn’t get enough chat on that, we sat down with James afterwards to find out the secrets behind the track.
From the story James wanted to tell with Safe Inside, to who he would have given it to if he didn’t sing it himself, here’s the full lowdown.
James on鈥� the story behind the song
“I’ve got four sisters and two of them have a different dad to me, and they grew up without a dad around, really. So I tried to play that role. I saw that the elder of those two sisters started to go off the rails a little bit, in a similar way to how I did, started rebelling against my mum and stuff.
“I wanted to take her out of that situation and took her under my wing, which is how I can relate to parents, watching their kids grow up and leaving the nest and making mistakes. Not really knowing how to deal with it. So that’s kind of what the song’s about.”
鈥he importance of telling a story
“I think it’s very important to have a narrative. I mean, not all the time, but for me personally it makes me more connected to the song and makes me deliver it in a more authentic way.”
鈥he writing process
“It began with me saying I want to write one of those songs that you can put to beautiful imagery, like a John Lewis advert, and it’ll move you. It tells a story, it’s cute, it’s sweet, it makes you think about family.
“Then I started to pick the brains of my producer of what it’s like to be a dad and it got me thinking about my relationship with my sisters. That’s kind of how the song happened. We had the concept already and then it wrote itself; the lyrics came, we started building chords and I started singing melodies.”
鈥ollowing smash hit Say You Won鈥檛 Let Go
“Say You Won’t Let Go went down so well because it was so authentic and so genuine, such a simple song, that I wanted to follow it up with something on that level. Then for the next song you go completely the other way, you sort of cement the idea of the album with the first two songs, so you can give people something diverse.”
鈥ho else could do Safe Inside justice
"I could see someone really authentic like or even , like Chris Martin, singing it. It’s so simple, it’s a good pop song, anyone could really do it justice."
