Seal - Kiss from a Rose

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 Rishikesh Hirway. Steel is a Grammy winning singer and songwriter from the first time. The song Kiss From a Rose was first released in 1994 on his second album.

Hit, thanks in part to being featured in the movie Batman Forever. It landed on the top 10 charts in multiple countries and eventually went quadruple platinum in the US. And at the 1996 Grammys, it won Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and But Kiss from a Rose becoming a hit wasn't a foregone conclusion. Seal almost didn't record it. And when it was first released, it didn't make much of a splash.

But for this episode, the 250th episode of Song Exploder, Seal and his longtime collaborator, producer Trevor Horn, told me the story of what it took to bring. More rose to life.

My name is Seal and I'm a recording artist. I wrote kiss from a rose around it would have been eighty six, eighty seven. I was living in a squat. I didn't have any money and I was just basically getting my act together, trying to figure out who I was musically. And Kiss for Morose came out of that period when you sort of do things not for any other purpose than because that's what's coming out of you.

I had no experience in a studio, in a proper recording studio at that point, and so I didn't know the rules. And it started out as a bit of an experiment because I just got this piece of recording apparatus called a for track. And I was trying to figure out how to use it. I couldn't play an instrument at the time. But I tried to imagine what an orchestra would do and and came up with these parts. Da da da da And

So I was essentially trying to uh mimic a flute, pizzicato violins, and a few other instruments, essentially an orchestra. And so I ended up recording about sixteen or seventeen tracks of vocals. trying to figure out how to work this machine and then everything was impulsive and instinctive. And at the end of the day doing it, I had this thing called Kiss from a Rose.

But I I remember kind of listening to the tape and s uh kind of tossed the tape to one side because I wasn't particularly proud of it.

Later on, we'd had some success. with a song called Killer that was quite popular. Killer is a song by the English DJ Adamski that featured Seal on guest vocals. It came out in 1990 and was a number one hit in the UK. And so I'd been to see a few different record companies. I remember walking into ZTT Records and as I was walking through the corridors I was looking at all of the plaques on the wall and there were bands like propaganda

Frankie goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones slave to the rhythm. And I remember looking at all of these records and going, Oh, I like that record. Oh yeah, I really like that record. Oh and it was only then that I made the connection that Trevor Horn had produced all of these. Uh, my name's Trevor Horn, and I'm an old record producer. My late wife was Jill Sinclair.

At the time Jill and I were kind of like a a team. Jill was my wife, but she was also my manager. And we started a record label together, which was ZTT. before I actually uh met Seal, she said, I've found him. I've found what I've been looking for. I remember the first meeting it very clearly, l as if it were yesterday.

Jill looked at me and she said, I'll never forget this, she said, Right, young man, let me tell you why this is your home. And I walked out of there and I remember telling my manager at the time that that's where I wanted to be. And so Trevor and I eventually got together and my life changed.

I remember this friend of mine would always tell Trevor, he said, You know, Seal's got this rose song, you should get him to play it to you And Trevor would keep saying to me, What's this song that Paul keeps going on about this rose song? And I'd be ah no no don't worry about you know. and I just passed it off as being nothing. You said it was sort of Elizabethan. Yeah that was it. And I remember being quite intrigued, but we never got round to it on the first record.

And then when we got the second record, I remember saying to you, Yeah, what about that Elizabethan thing?

And what did you think when he first showed it to you? I loved it, you're kidding. I thought it's so rare you hear something that's in three, four, you know, or six, eight, whichever time signature. I love the uh the I mean, what's not to love about that? We recorded at Psalm Studio, Psalm West in London. I didn't quite know how to do the song, but then I thought b probably the best thing is keep it straight, rather than trying to get clever with any techno stuff on it.

We had a seven piece band. Chris Bruce played guitar. Jamie Mohobrat played. A guy called Amp Fiddler also played keyboards initially. You had Harvey Mason on drums. An English guy on base. It has these amazing dynamic The band would get loud and then stop. You know, that's one of the things you get from playing it sort of live and and feeling.

I liked singing with the band, but I really liked the focus sessions that Trevor and I used to have in the studio because that's where I learned my trade, really. Baby! on the gray more I get a few At one point I used to live literally across the road in Trevor's basement flat and I would walk into the studio at sometimes three o'clock in the morning, sometimes, you know, one o'clock in the afternoon.

At all these different times. And there was always a mic ready. There was always a setup ready. There was always an engineer available, whether Trevor was there or not. Because Trevor once told me, look, everything else I can control and I can make it work, you know, whether it's orchestras, whether it's other musicians, the one thing I can't control is your vocal. But did you know that when it's And the light that you shine Mm-hmm.

Sometimes you were with friends, very nice friends, and I would uh I would say to you, Hey, Silver, why don't you do a vocal? And I'd sing better. Trevor's being tactful. I'd generally walk in with like some gorgeous lady and it Trevor understood, you know, if I had an audience to perform in front of, I sang differently. Yeah. So he encouraged me to get the vocal.

Because it's a tricky song, Kiss from Rod. It's not for the faint at heart. In the verses, it's low and exposed. And it's harder to sing the low parts when you're nervous than it is the high parts. I don't recollect you having any problem singing it, but we put in little three eighth bar to give you a breath. After one line.

'Cause it used to go, there used to be a green tower alone on the sea you women and uh It used to go like that, but then Trevor put in a little turnaround that would give me time to catch my breath. Yeah, used to be your great That little thing is so important to the overall performance. Trevor used to stress the importance of a middle eight. You started going I'd be in kiss from a rose.

Trevor was always big on orchestras. Yeah, I liked orchestras. Betsy Cook, who's a really great writer, and she came in and we were working on Kiss Moreau. And she's a great keyboard player and she went, God, I love this song. And then she left and then she came running back five minutes late and said, I've got an idea for a string part on this. Can I show you what it is?

I had a you know, I had a keyboard there and she was playing MIDI strings and I just recorded the MIDI strings into a computer. And then when we got the strings, I think there's only 30 strings. It's not like a 60-piece orchestra, but they're all the best players. When you have an orchestra that can Organically. God, that is a very, very unique type of luxury for a singer. Seals always like French horn. It's a beautiful instrument. Oboe's a beautiful instrument too.

Trevor used to get me to sing each part, the harmonies, eight times. And in those days we didn't you know, there was no autotune. So Trevor Got me to sing that harmony in terms of tightness and pitch. He would get me to sing it eight times. Until I got one that was passable, right? And it go, okay, great, now track to that. and can remember how they phrased something, won't you know, uh i it it does take a certain Talent to do it and Seal was just really good at it.

And, you know, the payoff is when you come into the studio and you split them left to right and you put them all up together and then you just hear this beautiful lush sound.

Kiss from a Rose was it was the fourth single released from the second album. It didn't easily slot into any genre. It went in the charts around sixty, dropped to eighty something the next week and it was out. DJs barely played it. No one really understood it, I guess, and no one heard it. But what happened was SEAL started to be managed by a guy called Bob Cavallo. and Bob was really good friends with uh Joel Schumacher, who had just directed the Batman movie.

Joel Schumacher, God bless him, it didn't fit in the love scene that he was trying to put the song in, but he loved the song so much he just stuck it on the end credits. And so when people went to go and see the movie, the last thing they heard when they were leaving the theater was And then Joel got me down to the studio lot where they shot a lot of the movie and

Stuck me in front of the batlight and he intercut it with scenes from the movie. And so once we got our foot in the door with this juggernaut of a movie. And this great video on MTV, then it had the legs, then it had the staying power. That was what was so funny about it in the end because it you know, in the end when we got Grammy for single of the year. It had been played on every kind of station. It was always a great record. The only difference is that people got to hear it.

Yeah, there's a lot of luck involved, one could argue that you create that luck, but whatever. Nonetheless, you do need that windfall. You do need that bit of luck. And Joel Schumacher and Bob Cavallo had the foresight to find a way to get that song heard.

I was broke, I was struggling to be heard, but then when I met Trevor I found the one guy who not only heard me but knew exactly what to do with my voice. I can't emphasize enough. The importance of finding that one person who sees you and hears you and who gets you. I think it's a good song, but I think it's a great record. And I that's not to do with me, that's to do with Trevor and the people that put that record together. As an artist and producer.

One life defining soul in your career. If you're lucky, you get And Kiss from a Rose was mine.

And now here's Kiss from a Rose by Seal in its entirety. For more, visit Songexploder. net. You'll find links to buy or stream Kiss from a Rose, and you can watch the music video that features Seal singing in front of the bat signal. 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, Rishikeshi Herway. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music.

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 to the

including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron in Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabond, Fen Lilly, and the producer Phil Weinrobe. I'm gonna be on tour playing in cities across the US 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, Simeen Nosrat, Jason Manzukis, Josh Molina, Min Jin Lee.

John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all gonna 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 tickets for the shows on my website rishices.co or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's song exploder. Live. Thanks.

This episode of Song Exploder was made by me, Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, and Mary Dolan. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. 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.fm.

You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway, and you can follow the show at Song Exploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at Songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishike Shirway. Thanks for listening.