Rolling in the Deep, Rumour Has It, Someone Like You, Set Fire to the Rain, Skyfall, Hello, Send My Love to Your New Lover, All I Ask
I was in a flat in Edinburgh watching the 2011 BRIT Awards and was mildly impressed by Adele’s rendition of her song Someone Like You, essentially I Will Always Love You written by a lady from Tottenham and the man who wrote Secret Smile and Closing Time, Dan Wilson of Semisonic.
I didn’t know the rest of the UK would fall hard for Adele, whose first album 19 contained some magical songs like Hometown Glory and Chasing Pavements. Second album 21, which came out in 2010, included the magnificent Rumour Has It (a Ryan Tedder co-write) and the lead single Rolling in the Deep, which featured sublime melodic lines in the verse, bridge and chorus. Someone Like You outdid them both, topping the UK and Billboard charts for five non-consecutive weeks.
Did you know that no song with a piano as a lead instrument had ever been number one on the Billboard Hot 100? With only voice and piano, Someone Like You ushered in a revolution. A simple song about a girl moving on without her man, whom she wishes ‘nothing but the best’ but hopes isn’t forgotten, struck a chord with millions of adult contemporary listeners.
Because it was current, a poll in 2012 found that only Billie Jean and Bohemian Rhapsody were more beloved UK number ones. The GRAMMYs invented a Best Pop Solo Performance category for this song.
Set Fire to the Rain was written by Adele with Fraser T Smith (the man given the shout-out in Blinded by Your Grace by Stormzy). It’s about finding ‘a side…that I never knew’ in a loved one. The middle eight is particularly good here, and this was also a huge hit song around the world, helped by strings which sounded like the song’s title and a graceful piano line.
Rumour Has It was a song I remember listening to for the first time in Edinburgh as well, walking in the Meadows. I loved the beat and the harmony voices in the background, as well as the ‘Tedder handclaps’ in the second verse. The breakdown section is electrifying and when the song finished I went WOW! I thought this would be a monster song and it was.
Rolling in the Deep was written with the mighty Paul Epworth, who has worked with Paul McCartney, U2, Coldplay, Lorde, Mumford & Sons and Florence + the Machine. It was both Song and Record of the Year, from the Album of the Year, as the GRAMMYs saw which way the wind was blowing. The video to the song begins with Adele sitting on a chair in a large unfurnished room. The floor of another room is covered with glasses of water and then a chap dances in a room filled with sand. The long, held notes of the chorus (‘We could have had it all’) are underscored by the Motown-y backing vocals (‘You’re gonna wish you never had met me’). Adele’s vocal is sensational here, and a big improvement on the shy delivery of the first album. The production foregrounds the voice while giving equal importance to the backing vocals. The sound is phenomenal.
Adele and Paul Epworth also wrote the theme to the Bond movie Skyfall, which emerged at the end of 2012. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. She performed the song at the 2013 ceremony, with the familiar four-note motif transposed to piano and ushering in her vocal: ‘This is the end, hold your breath and count to ten’. With an orchestra and choir behind her, she sings the defiant chorus (‘We will stand tall, face it all together’). The song works in the title of the film without disrupting the musicality. Don’t tell Shirley Bassey but Skyfall could be the finest Bond theme of all.
Adele had dominated music for two years with her soulful voice that has no comparison. It’s a little Dusty Springfield and a little Amy Winehouse but it is definitely her own sound. One day in 2015 she popped up in a TV advert singing ‘Hello, it’s me’ and after three years away had returned.
Written with the great Greg Kurstin, it copied the Skyfall formula: emphatic piano, strong lead vocals, backing vocals, belting chorus (‘hello from the other side’), heartache and magnificent production from Greg. Another Pop Solo Performance, Record and Song of the Year GRAMMY hat-trick followed.
Famously beating Beyonce to Album of the Year at the GRAMMYs, Adele’s speech was a masterclass in British humility that no American would have dared do. Receiving it from Tim McGraw and Faith Hill she wept with thanks to the many producers, including Max Martin, Ryan Tedder and Shellback: ‘It took an army to make me strong and willing again.’ She spoke of becoming a mother (‘it’s really hard’). I can’t possibly accept this award. [The] artist of my life is Beyonce; the Lemonade album was so monumental! You are our light. The way you make my black friends feel is empowering, and I love you!’
The slinky Send My Love (To Your New Lover) has a looped acoustic guitar vamp over which Adele updates Someone Like You but with a Swedish touch. All I Ask, meanwhile, is another piano and vocal number written by Bruno Mars. I misheard the chorus as ‘hold me like I’m more than just a breath’ (it’s ‘friend’) and, though Adele’s take is superlative, I think Bruno has made the definitive version of the song, turning it into a Babyface or Boyz II Men type ballad that ramps up a key for the final chorus.
Adele, beloved around the world, may not record another note due to vocal trouble, an unwillingness to perform live and with her baby Angelo to raise. How fun must it be to take your child round to Adele’s for playdates and be able to ask: ‘So love, how does it feel to be an ordinary mum?’