The Story Behind Adele's "Chasing Pavement"

There was a not-so-pretty story behind this award-winning single. Adele's "Chasing pavement" received three Grammy award nominations and won one of them but once you learn what inspired this hit single you may wonder whether it was really worth it (from Adele's point of view, at least). Although I have no hard statistics to back this up I suspect that not too many hit songs were inspired by a blow to the face.

You see, Adele was in a six-month relationship with a (now ex) boyfriend. One day she found out that he had cheated on her. So she went to the London West End bar where her boyfriend was located and confronted him. The confrontation led our illustrious heroine to throw a punch in the face. Yes, she was subsequently tossed out of the bar. Afterward Adele ran through Oxford Street by herself, noting that "He didn't chase after me! So I was running, just looking at these big wide pavements stretching in front me." She then asked herself, "What is it you're chasing? You're chasing an empty pavement."

From a musical point of view it's a good thing we live in an era of mobile phones. Adele used one right then and there to sing and record the words that came into her head, arranging the chords only later after she arrived home.

The best part was that the song went on to win the Grammy award for the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

And the worst part? After finding out that many of the songs on "19" were inspired by their break-up Adele's former boyfriend demanded some of the royalties! She told the British newspaper The Sun, "For about a week he was calling and was deadly serious about it. Finally, I said, 'Well, you made my life hell, so I lived it and now I deserve it.' He really thought he'd had some input into the creative process by being a *****. I'll give him this credit - he made me an adult and put me on the road that I'm traveling."

Also, it seems the Law of Unintended Consequences was at work as well. Remember how much criticism John Lennon received for composing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" because it supposedly stood for the initials "LSD"? The fact that the title stemmed from a picture that Lennon's son Julian had innocently drawn at school for a friendly classmate was overlooked... especially since Lennon, of course, really had used LSD previously.

Unfortunately, "Chasing Pavement" suffered something of the same fate. It seems that in America the phrase "chasing pavement" has been used to describe chasing gay men, and that the song was about being gay, a claim which Adele vigorously disputed.

Regardless of what you think the title means you've got to hand it to Adele. How many people are talented enough to take a physical altercation and turn it into Grammy Gold?

If you liked the songs from Adele's "19" then you can click here to download a free rock song.

The Lyrics From Adele's "21": The Story Behind "Rolling In The Deep"

Little need be said. "Rolling in the Deep" was the song of the year from the album of the year. Now who could she have been singing about? Even cursory attention to the lyrics would tell the listener that Adele is speaking to a lover who jilted her. But what went into this lyrical blast of R & B that would walk off with so many accolades?

Let's start with the title. Where did "Rolling In The Deep" come from? In an interview with Rolling Stone Adele described it as, "adaptation of a kind of slang, slur phrase in the UK called 'roll deep,' which means to have someone, always have someone that has your back, and you're never on your own, if you're ever in trouble you've always got someone who's going to come and help you fight it or whatever like that. And that's how I felt in the relationship that the record's about, especially 'Rolling in the Deep.' That's how I felt, you know, I thought that's what I was always going to have, and um, it ended up not being the case."

Some songwriters labor for ages over a song. Not with this one. Adele wrote the lyrics in three hours the day after she broke up with her boyfriend. Lucky for the boyfriend that we don't know for certain who he is.

Adele had planned to write a ballad but her producer Paul Epworth changed her mind, suggesting something more aggressive. Her (now ex) boyfriend had made some offensive statements to her during an argument and Adele wrote the lyrics in response, or as she told The London Sunday Times "We'd had a fuming argument the night before... I'd been bubbling. Then I went into the studio and screamed." My money says her ex now wishes he hadn't said them.

Actually, no description of what went into the lyrics would be complete without mentioning the most overlooked words of all: her producer's! Listen realllly carefully to the very beginning of the song just before Adele starts singing and you can faintly hear producer Paul Epworth doing a count off. A technical error? A practical joke? 'Twas neither. It seems the take you hear on the record is actually a demo (this happens sometimes). Yes, Adele sang more takes afterward but none of them captured the hurt and anger she poured into that first try. So Epworth used this original take and built the arrangement around it. His barely audible voice at the beginning evidently couldn't be edited out.

A minor footnote to a truly major song. It takes genuine skill to toss off award winning song lyrics in a couple of hours and deliver a stunning vocal on the very first take. But that's exactly what Adele did.

If you liked the songs from Adele's "21" then you can click here to download a free rock song.

The Story Behind Adele's "Someone Like You"

As a songwriter myself I've always felt that one of the best indicators of how talented artists really are is, What can they do with just one instrument and their voice? No rhythm section, no strings, no synthesizer... nothing. Just you and your instrument. I can think of several superb examples over the years, such as Simon and Garfunkel's "For Emily, wherever I may find her", Elton John's "Talking old soldiers", and Cat Stevens' "Sweet Scarlet". But these and other examples have just been trumped by Adele's smash hit "Someone like you".

How successful was this song? Try this out: it is the only song in the entire history of the Billboard Hot 100 charts that consists of just a piano and a vocal to ever hit the number one spot. Over a thousand songs have hit #1 since Billboard began keeping track in 1958. Adele's is the first of its kind to reach the top.

So what was behind this groundbreaking ballad? We know that Adele ended an eighteen month-long relationship with a 30-year old man whom she was convinced she would marry and that this breakup inspired her two other hits, "Rolling in the Deep" and "Rumour has it". Sadly (or perhaps not, considering how many copies it sold), the same doomed romance inspired "Someone like you" as well.

But now there was a new added twist. Her ex had become engaged to another woman a few months after leaving Adele. As she herself put it in an interview, "... when I found out that he does want that (marriage) with someone else, it was just the horrible-est feeling ever. But after I wrote it, I felt more at peace. It set me free. I'm wiser in my songs. My words are always what I can never say (in real life). But I didn't think it would resonate... with the world! I'm never gonna write a song like that again. I think that's the song I'll be known for." In her imagination she saw herself as middle-aged and still single, looking up her ex years later only to find that he married someone beautiful, had children, and was living 'happily ever after'.

She co-wrote the song with Dan Wilson of Semisonic fame. But her contribution to the song didn't exactly arrive easily: "I wrote that song on the end of my bed. I had a cold. I was waiting for my bath to run. I'd found out he'd got engaged. And it blows my mind how things cross over like that." Perhaps more songwriters should contract viral syndromes.

She and Wilson recorded a "demo" of just her voice and Wilson playing the piano, expecting that co-producer Rick Rubin would add strings and choirs to turn it into a lush, vast ballad. Instead as insiders listened to it and were consistently brought to tears the duo decided to keep their first-draft "demo" instead.

Incidentally, that's not the first time something like that has happened. Bruce Springsteen's haunting 1982 acoustic record "Nebraska" was mastered straight from a cassette full of demos that the Boss kept in his pocket (without a case) while the E Street Band played the stuffing out of all the songs. Only later did everyone, including Springsteen, come to realize that the cassette in his back pocket was the best version.

Regardless of how it was recorded, give credit where credit is due. Heavy instrumentation would probably only have diluted the power of Adele's emotional vocal. Some things, wisely, should be left well enough alone.

If you liked the songs from Adele's "21" then you can click here to download a free rock song.