A gloriously cinematic exploration of love, with lyrics written by Katie Melua, and production by Leo Abrahams – ‘A LOVE LIKE THAT’ is a true tour-de-force of artistic and lyrical maturity.
This is songcraft at its finest, with Melua’s faultless performance completely inhabiting the song, and the musical presentation and arrangements expertly executed by Abrahams, co-composer Sam Dixon, and mixers Cameron Craig and Luke Potashnick. The full cast of exceptional musicians on this track also includes drummer Emre Ramazanoglu, flautist Jack Pinter, and The Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra.
The video for ‘A Love Like That’ is the first in a series of stunning visuals Melua has collaborated on with the award-winning director Charlie Lightening (Paul McCartney, Liam Gallagher, Kasabian) and featuring Billy Howle (Star Wars, Dunkirk, Outlaw King).
The single is the first to be taken from Melua’s forthcoming studio album Album No. 8, a record that represents the culmination of a prolonged period of musical rediscovery for the 35-year-old. The lyrics, her most personal yet, see her attempting to reconcile the knotty complexities of real-life love to its fairytale counterpart. Elsewhere, Melua draws from the vernacular of folk songs to evoke a sense of magic-hour wonder mirrored by string arrangements whose depth and movement evoke Charles Stepney’s work with Rotary Connection and Ramsey Lewis. What results is her most cohesive and assured album to date.
Speaking about the writing process of ‘A Love Like That’, Melua says:
This song is asking the essential timeless question about mad love, ‘How do you make a love like that last?’ But before it became about love between a couple, it started its life centred on my relationship with work and the stamina required to keep being an artist in the music industry. It was only after my co-composer Sam Dixon and I wrapped our session, that I retreated to a cottage in the Cotswolds for 3 weeks to wrestle with the song’s lyrics. ‘A Love Like That’ continues a narrative that is across the new album. And in the context of love – it is about having the courage to speak openly and freely.
Katie’s producer Leo Abrahams adds:
The highlight for me was recording the orchestra in Tbilisi with Katie. The arrangement is written to convey the protagonist’s changing state of mind throughout the song: from turbulent to calm, sentimental to defiant. Technically this was probably the simplest arrangement on the record but we had to do almost 20 takes of the tremolando introduction to get the right amount of aggression but with an elegant resolution. The players seemed to enjoy it!