you will have heard: GRACE

Grace - Lewis Capaldi

Welcome back to another week of songs you will have heard! This week the random number generator has sent us a little further down the chart to number 30...

THE SONG:

Lewis Capaldi has made a name for himself through his poignant portrayal of the pain of love and life, and Grace is another lesson in longing, fuelled by a desire for his love not to leave him, as he takes us through his fear of losing the “salvation” that he has found.

His signature gravelly vocals pierce through both the song and your heart, and implore you to feel the fear that he does, which is kind of him.

But.

These are all things Capaldi has done very effectively on other songs. Someone You Loved and Lost On You do it gloriously – it’s just him and his piano, pouring out his sorrow, the pain in his voice palpable, and conjure up very real emotion within you as you listen.

On Grace, the production value has gone up – there are more instruments, hell even some percussion – but I fear that this may have blunted Capaldi’s ability to make you really feel something – it all comes across a bit produced, a bit constructed, a bit, well, Ed Sheeran. (sorry Lewis)

The song is still enjoyable, it’s got a decent chorus (and an even better pre-chorus) but it just feels like it’s missing something real. Sometimes less is more, and Grace may well have just proved it.

THE ARTIST:

Lewis Capaldi, rumoured to be the only long-haired Scot that doesn't present Coast

Things seem to be going pretty well for the Scottish singer-songwriter. His most recent single, Someone You Loved, reached number 3 in the UK charts last November, and announced an upcoming debut album, Divinely Inspired to a Hellish Intent. Then his UK tour tickets went on sale.

They sold out in 1 second.

1 second. The lad has only had 3 songs in the top 100 in the UK. Wild.

Even with all this madness going on, Capaldi is known for being a proper down to earth fella, and a bit of a joker.

His Twitter feed is packed full of retweets of memes made about him, fans laughing at his Instagram stories, and jokes Capaldi himself is making, and this may help explain the fierceness of his appeal – you get the sense that he is just a normal guy, the sort of guy you might meet down the pub or at the football, who just happens to also be able to write a hit single.

His voice has that perfect level of gravel – minimal in lower registers, but kicks in hard when he starts belting out – that really lend it to the pained, one-sad-man-and-his-piano tunes such as Someone You Loved.

And this is what really sets him apart from the other male singer-songwriters currently releasing (I’m looking at you Sheeran), this quirk of his voice that just, prevents it from getting tedious – because lets be honest, there’s some extremely dreary male solo work out there right now (again, looking at you Sheeran), where the artist – much like the audience – just sounds bored.

This is not the case with Capaldi, and every time you hear his voice crack, you listen up, and feel his pain right along with him.

Other songs to check out: Someone You Loved, Tough, Lost On You.

RATING:

6/10

It’s a decent song, and I enjoyed listening to it. However, I don’t believe it’s his best effort – Capaldi is at his best when he leaves you emotionally spent, pining for a lost love that may not even exist, and whilst this song on the surface of it is sad, the chorus fails to deliver the sort of emotional turmoil that I want to be leaving with.

How dare he not make me sad.

Stream it here: