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Hey, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with Sam Smith.

I'm just playing long Weuy, I'm just playing in lone with you.

Hey, I'm Nora.

Welcome to the show.

And with me, it's always is Sarah Oda.

Welcome to our show.

Yay.

Our guest today is Grammy winning singer songwriter, beautiful human with an incredible.

Voice, Sam Smith.

They broke out with Stay with Me and their record called in the Lonely Hour in twenty fourteen, and you're going to hear about how they've continued evolving since then.

Currently, they're doing a tour of intimate, stripped down residencies called.

To Be Free.

The New York run has extended dates through December thirteenth.

Keep an eye out to see if there's still tickets available, but they've also announced more residency dates in San Francisco for February of twenty twenty six.

Yeah.

This was a really special episode, really really heartwarming.

I'm a fan and I really just could I could listen to Sam talk forever.

Yeah, we sang some pretty songs too beautiful.

Yeah, you're going to hear about evolving as an artist and kind of how fans perceive those changes.

Feeling happy and confident in your own skin, and staying connected with music from the past, which isn't always easy, and new takes on songs you might know.

Yeah, so I hope you enjoy this episode with Sam Smith.

You're living in New York.

Yes, I'm living in New York.

And is it How does it feel?

It feels?

It feels amazing.

It's it feels like for me, the first time I found a place to be where I'm just enough and not.

That's that's how it feels like to me.

Wow.

Yeah, it's like I've just everywhere I've always been since I was a kid, it's just always too much all the time and too loud, too big, to queer, to opinionate, all these things, and so it really it feels like it's a city that can facilitate my nature.

That is deep, which is beautiful, That.

Is really beautiful.

Well, welcome to New York.

Thank you, Yeah, thank you.

You're hearing that from you is amazing.

Wow, that's really quite a thing to to realize.

Yeah.

Yeah, Well, I'm glad you're content here.

This feels good and you're doing like this crazy string of shows.

Yeah, just at the Warsaw, right, Yeah, the Warsaw How many shows is it?

Twenty four shows in total, but.

With little breaks, right, Yeah, it's three.

Shows a week for three weeks, and then I get two weeks break, which I'm on right now, and then another three weeks.

Aren't But that sounds so fun.

It's so fun.

And yeah, it's so fun, and I it was quite confronting the first show, because you've got to remember, You've got to remember I've been traveling since I was twenty years old.

My shows started to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and I I just became an arena artist and that's what I did for my whole twenties.

And the pressure of that and the I love playing those rooms and nothing and the buzz of it is so incredible.

It's a different thing.

It's a different thing, and for me, it's you know, I've never really spoken about it too much in detail because I because but I can now I think, But I am so scared of performing live really, Yeah, I find it really traumatic and petrifying.

Is it just your nature to be shy like that or no?

I think.

I think.

Actually, now I'm going on and realize I'm more of a what's it called introvert.

I'm more of an intro than I thought I was, because I'm in, you know, in everyday life.

I'm larger than life.

But it's just being in those rooms.

It what it is.

It's the pressure.

It's the pressure in those big arenas.

For me, it's the pressure on my voice to deliver.

I find that crippling.

And because I've chosen to not mime and not to lean on that if things go.

Wrong, which most arena artists do.

Yeah, a lot of a lot of them do, I think, And and that is there's no judgment.

Actually, and I actually tried it once.

There's one show that I for one song in one show, I was like, do you know what?

I can't be so opinionated about this unless I try it myself.

So there's one show one night on my tour when my voice was totally fine, and I just said, JO for one song, I'm gonna min or just start to finish.

I just had a live vocal come over my voice.

I I and I mind for the first time ever in a room full of twenty thousand people.

But I still sang ninety percent of that show, ninety nine percent of that show.

But you just wanted to see what it was like.

I would see what it was like for one song, and it was it was great.

You got a little break, it was great, my voice got a break.

But it was just it wasn't it wasn't right for me.

I I think that I got into you know, I started doing musical theater as a child, and then I decided I wanted to stop doing musical theater when I was about fifteen, from listening to records like yours and so many records around me as a child, where I just fell in love with the art of singer songwriters and people telling their stories through their records.

And my singing teacher at the time is an amazing woman called Joanna Eden, and she is a singer songwriter and she is incredible and her albums used to inspire me so much when I was a child, because I was like, Wow, I could do that.

I can actually tell my stories and maybe even travel one day around the country or you know, never really thought it would be the world, but and be able to like just play small venues and enjoy the art of singing and sharing stories.

That's what I fell in love with and from a young age I kind of promised myself that.

And one of the main reasons why I love that art form is so much is because of the warts and all, and from those incredible recordings of you know, Jooni Mitchell and people like that, where you hear the voice change and you hear the imperfections in the voice change.

And so I think that through miming that one time in that one song, I really it became clear to me what I wanted to do.

And so doing these shows at the Warsaw have been an amazing way of me getting back to that and getting back to the real love of what I do, and that my love, because my ultimate love is studio writing.

Singing and performing was more more of a secondary thing that comes with the territory.

Well being in a small room.

I was just talking to a friend this morning about that, because I went to a few arena shows recently and it was so different from from where I play in usually smaller theaters and being backstage.

Because I was backstage, I got to be backstage and it was crazy, because what did you say I saw?

I saw John Legend last night and I got to singing.

It was incredible.

He's incredible.

He's incredible, the greatest, one of the greatest there is.

His voice is insane, so beautiful.

But just the backstage area and it was a very nice arena.

You know, it's beautiful, but I feel like if you were only in those kinds of places, even just being backstage, it feels kind of lonely.

It's very lonely.

It's very lonely and isolating.

And you know, one of the things I love about doing shows is I like being with my band.

I like being close to my band, especially my backing singers there they're my family, and so I love to be close to people.

And because it really is as much as it's my name of my songs, it's such a collaborative thing, you know, being on stage, so.

Well, that's what when it is, that's when it's the best.

Yes, yes, but I my whole career became in my last arena tour became very very isolated where for me to fill some sort of control as well.

I actually I kind of lean into the theatrics really far on my last arena tour with the costume changes, and I was quite defined.

I was like, look, if I'm going to do this room in this way and sing pop songs like this, then this is how it's going to be.

It's going to be loads of track and and I'm going to do this pop star thing that I've always the itch, I've always wanted to scratch.

So you did it so well.

It was fun.

I was I was fat, and I was shattered the whole way through it.

I sprayed my ankle three times because I was wearing People don't realize I'm like, you know, the girls, the girls, the queens of music, you know, they do this and they do it so incredibly well.

But I'm a six foot two, seventeen stone queer person, you know, in eight inch massive hills.

That's nice running around, you know, like doing crazy things and being new, like naked on stage every night for that one song when I sang them Adonna song Express Yourself.

It was such a wild experience and it was really was a dream come true and I got to tick that box.

But after I was like, I belong at the Warsaw and Brooklyn right now.

I need to go back.

I need to regather, and I need to connect to my fan base again, because me and my fans we we I think there's a little there's been a disconnect naturally, because I've gone from being to them a gay, a young gay man, to now being in a position where I have my pronouns have changed and I'm a queer person and I'm now a very different person, and so I have to reconnect with my fans.

But I think they're all changing as well.

I mean, everyone, over time changes, and I think that's just part of life.

And I think people's favorite type of artists are ones who change.

Yeah, I think so.

I think going from being this pop star in the arena to playing these intimate shows, it's just so special for people.

But you must have experienced that right through your career, like having to like do the things that you want to do and maybe some people not coming along for the ride.

Probably.

I had a record label president tell me he didn't love my record, and that was fine because he was my friend and I trusted him.

But I loved it, and so he still was fine and he let me put it out.

Is a good thing, you know, that's good.

But yeah, I think I think changing once you realize that you can't do this to please them.

You want to stay connected to them, but only that's only going to keep happening if you're doing what just tickles you, you know, yeah, what you love.

Yeah, it's so true.

Well, I wanted to see if you wanted to sing one of your new songs that you've been doing at the warsaw Yes, I would love to that to be Free it's actually called the to Be Free.

It's called to it's called to Be Free tour, that residency tour that if we've announced to the residen season.

This song is a song that I wrote with my friend Simon Aldred and I wrote it at the very the same week that I actually changed my pronouns and went on this this this moment of self discovery for me and realization, and I wrote this song with him and it's just such an amazing moment.

And I'll never sing the song like I did in the recording because it was five years ago.

And and you felt it every drop of it.

Yeah, it was like the whole the song that you that's been released is the it's just me singing the thing the whole way through me and him just performing free in the room, no clicks beautiful.

It was amazing, So I you.

Know it sure goes along with the lyrics too, you know everything and just do it.

That's beautiful.

I would love to okay.

Pray, be live, prave and free like bye.

Flowed, oh fare whole place down the lane to be free, like the river, just be to be free, winds of feed.

Fly to.

Shake off you're burden, shame stol, friend of body lost, my faith in perfect.

Will behold.

Entire to be free, thank the river, just to be.

To be free, winds of freedom.

Flyer flo ae fla to be free, and the river.

That is the speed.

To be free.

Wings are freedom.

Fight tune me, fight me change.

Oh that's so pretty.

Two days ago I was I was Julia Childs for Halloween.

Oh my god, so I was.

So I was screaming like like screaming really laugh and my voices.

On did you do the show on Halloween?

I did?

Yeah, were you Julia Childs for the show?

But after the show, after the show, that's kind of a brilliant, fabulous.

That's like the best costume I think I've heard in one.

The theme of my Halloween part was Meryl streep, so we and then last year the theme was Nicole Kidman.

Can I where do I get it?

Invite to this Friday right now?

You're invited next year.

Come next year we're going to do Sex and City.

I think, Oh my god, I'm a Halloween.

Lover since coming to New York.

I now get it.

Like it's different here, isn't it.

It's like, yeah, I.

Spent one Halloween in London and it was funny.

It's quite bleak.

Yeah, well it was fun, but yeah, nobody else was dressed like me.

I felt really ugly.

And it's all for children in the Halloween in the UK, like THEE it's involved.

Yeah, okay, Yeah, your songs are very piano friendly.

Oh there's so beautiful and fun to play.

It's like a prayer.

Yeah, it feels like a prayer that song to me when I sing it, and like even just then, like my voice feels a bit tired today, but it still feels right when I'm doing it.

You can mumble it and hopefully when I'm old and gray, I can croak it out.

I think you will.

It's so beautiful.

You said you wrote that at a time when you were really coming into yourself a little more.

It's been really interesting watching you over the years and feeling I've come to this realization that you've become such an inspiration to so many people, and it's really beautiful.

And I was wondering if you feel that you must know that you must feel it from people.

Yeah, I think I'm actually in the process right now of starting to like now that I've now I feel like I'm in my skin, which I always felt, to be honest, but it was just now I feel like everyone's caught up with me.

It's more how I feel that makes sense.

Yeah, I feel I feel now ready to assume responsibility in and feel good about that, not just for hopefully queer people that may see themselves a little bit in what I do or or feel soothed by it, but also for everyone, not just queer people, anyone who feels different.

You know, it's it's just most people, which is most people.

Yeah.

I think the more we spoke about that, actually, the more we'd realize we have so much more in common than we think.

Yeah, but it was, Yeah, it was.

It's been a strange experience to me because I was so out and proud as a child, were you okay, very like it was not you know, there was no containing me.

I was.

There was no closets.

Honestly, when I came out, everyone was like, yeah, like it was so and I came out so young.

I was like ten years old, and so by the time that I was in school end of school, I was wearing four I go to score every day in makeup and female clothing and everything, and I was very much how people have seen me over the last three years expressed myself.

I was doing that at eighteen.

I felt like for the first for my first album, I kind of felt like I was in drag.

By wearing suits, wearing my suits, and my queer file was like, this is fab I feel like I feel, I feel.

I loved it.

I felt very much in my skin because I was exploring.

It was only until my second album when there was this pressure to remain the same.

Yeah, I was going to ask if that came again then from the industry.

It was from the industry, but it's also myself, like I was, I'm a very ambitious person and so I I would love like I looked at people around me like I looked at Adele, and I looked at ed sheeran even like Amy Winehouse and you know, so many of the greats.

I looked at them and I just thought, I would love to be like that.

I'd love to just stick with that iconic look and that and that thing and be able to stay there.

And so I tried.

I tried, and but there is a there is an ocean inside of me that is constantly flowing.

Wow, it's a weird thing to balance because you're happy and you're getting happier in your skin, but you're still very blessed and lucky in your career in life, so there's nothing to moan about.

But when you see ambition starts to lessen, and when you see people leaving, you only see usually people mostly only see the negative sometimes, Oh for sure, easy to ruminate on that for sure.

And thank god I had amazing positive people around me that was you know, just like, look around you, this is incredible.

Like if there's nothing to worry about, it's beautiful.

But you know, I was trained from a young age to be ambitious and to and to break through the ceilings above me, you know, And so I'm starting to realize now that I can do that still if I want to.

But Yeah, it was.

It was a transitional thing that happened to me that I don't think has happened to a lot of Popeyes before.

No, I don't think so at all.

That's why I feel like it's so it's amazing.

Actually, you know, when I was thinking about the last ten or so years and you preparing for this, I was thinking about all of the evolving that's happened you and how how was that on the inside, you know, how was that it was?

It was you know, it was it was hard, but it was it was the more I became myself, the more happy off my skin.

The hardest part for me was in on my second album, I did call a tal called the Thrill of It or World Tour, and it was one hundred and forty dates.

That's a lot around the world, and my audience was huge, and it was the pressure was insane.

Yeah, and I got through one hundred dates and did it.

And I think I did those hundred dates without canceling anything.

And then.

Throughout the tour, I'd start to really start to realize that I'm not moving on stage the way that I want to, the way that I'm dancing.

I'm kind of I'm playing straight.

I'm like, to me, what that ever meant to me?

But like, I'm I'm kind of moving.

I'm not moving in the way that I move when I'm out of the club with my friends because I'm I'm quite a fem mover and dancer, and so I'm like trying to enjoy my shows and dance.

But I could have moved in the way that I wanted to.

And so that that created this dialogue within me, like what's what's happening here?

And then I started to realize, oh God, there's this there's a secret I have that I haven't shared with the world, I haven't shared with my team, and that is that I'm fem that I'm a femme queer person.

And so that became bigger.

This this pressure became bigger and bigger, bigger within yourself, within myself to share it, to share it.

And I knew that I had this secret I had to share, and it all came to fruition.

I was in South Africa and I was I was I thought I was doing fine and getting through everything.

But I was on stage and I had like three four songs in and I just like something in my brain switched and then I had a massive panic attack four songs in on stage.

Managed to hide it from the audience, but walked off stage.

And I've never done this in my life.

I'd walked off stage and just walked directly into my car and I said, I need to go, and I went to the hotel and had to cancel thirty shows and I stopped performing for about a year and a half.

I didn't talk about it publicly, and I'm happy I didn't because at the time.

At the time, yeah, because I'm happy I didn't talk about it because I was able to heal without the pressure of everyone knowing that, oh, I was having panic attacks, so.

That would be the worst.

Yeah.

Yeah, So when I go.

Back on stage, I could act actually like have a chance at dealing with it privately.

But that was the hardest part for me because my body just went this character that we're doing right now, it's done.

It rejected it, it rejected it.

Isn't it weird?

How the body?

Will they say that that book The body keeps score?

It really is.

Oh God, it's wild.

It's actually and it's a lovely thing.

It's like it's self protective.

Yeah, your brain is only one part of your whole body.

Your whole body's moving it.

Yeah, you know, you've got to listen to it.

And so I stopped.

And that's when I had lots of therapy.

I realized that, you know, this is I'm showing facets of myself to the public through my music.

And I'm very famous and successful because of this, but I am there's more.

There's more to me that needs to be shared.

Yeah, you know, And and so I did, and I found the courage.

That's beautiful.

Did you feel like at that time was it all making its way into the music you were making?

Yeah for sure.

So so the music was telling all the sort of insides of you.

Yeah, I think it was.

And that's what I get so frustrated with with the way that my music has taken sometimes because my my third and my fourth album became more and more commercial and more pop.

And I've mean, I guess you can hear that money was in the room.

When when When when you listen to that music, because there's there's their formulaic and their I think that some people look at it as if I sold out sometimes, but that's what think.

No, but I spent years think about it and even now to this day, when I'm releasing new music now people are saying, you know, I've heard, I heard I now don't listen to anything, but I heard someone say recently, this new song so authentic.

It's so nice for them to hear them doing what they want to do.

I suppose what the labelers forced to do on the last few albums.

Which is not the case.

It's not the case because to understand my third and fourth record, you have to understand the context of what it is to be queer and famous at twenty five years old.

Yeah, and so I was making music that I was being I wasn't like I've never been like a cool queer person where I like, for you won't find me in like deep Brooklyn, like listening to like incredible like house music and stuff.

I feel quite alienated from those rooms A lot of the time.

I'm I'm kind of more of like a radical, centrist queer person, like you'll find me in Stonewall, like you'll find me in those parts of gay culture.

I like to be in the center, and I always like to be kind of around, yeah, just around the set the center of queerness in that way, in the on those high streets that have all that history around.

I enjoy that.

And so the music that I was exposed to and have been from when I was finding myself in my twenties was like real, like down straight down the middle pop music, incredible pop music, an the anthems, and also the kind of like I don't I don't want to bad mouth the pop that I'm talking about when I'm saying this, but just like I don't know, like it's so weird.

There's there's like some songs that I've loved from girl groups that I've been obsessed with for a long time, and I've even met the writers behind it who have kind of said, oh, we wrote that as a joke, and I'm like, well, it's not a joke to me, Like I love that song, I like dance to it.

It's my going out song.

And so I'm very proud of those records.

And within those records there's fantastic moments, but there's also moments that I've learned a lot from.

And so yeah, I get annoyed that people don't understand the context of my music sometimes and they they compare me to straight counterparts that the work where context is important.

You can't.

Yeah, those opinions will hang you up.

Yeah, and they will mess you up.

You can't.

Yeah, push them aside, I have to.

Yeah, it's something I am just coming to great so with even now.

Like, yeah, I learned that lesson after my first record.

Yeah, I stopped reading anything because it just hurt my feelings.

Yeah, even though a lot of it was so good.

All again, all you see is the negative.

It's really hard to see all the good sometimes you just focus on them like one little negative thing.

See, I'm a sucker for Like I think it's probably down to my my upbringing.

I think a lot of queer people as well are hard on themselves, so I think, of course.

I see it as like I thought it was positive to like whip myself like that, but it's not.

And I'm realizing that now.

No, No, I'm sure you know, the baggage we all carry is different.

But I'm sure it's pretty deep.

It goes pretty deep for you.

Yeah, it does.

And it's just it's a learning and it's a practice and I'm getting so much better at it.

But I just I do.

I am just a big kind of I'm a cheerleader for the music, for my music.

Yeah, well, your music is beautiful, and I wanted to ask, also, it's a dance music and you go out and dance.

Yes, a little bit.

Not anymore.

Actually before, before, when I was younger, I did, yeah, but it was more it was it wasn't necessary to dance.

It was more to pop, just pop stars, pop girls doing what they do.

I'm just I'm I'm.

Everything that I'm inspy by is from women.

That's the truth the whole way through.

You know, it's only a few men I listened to and really, yeah, and I just love listening to stories from women.

That's beautiful, greatest.

Well, you want to try another song?

Yeah, yeah, I love the song.

I'm not the only one.

I just love that piano part.

I know that insane?

Yeah, who played Jimmy names?

He wrote that and he played it and we actually wrote completely different song to those chords, which which wasn't great.

And then like a few weeks later, I was just like, we have to go back to those chords because there's something about those courts.

They're so good and just the way he plays them.

And then we redid it and took a second crack at it, and then we wrote this which.

Is okay, which is amazing.

It's great.

Is this on your first song?

This is on my first album?

Yeah, this is.

It's a song about I was.

I was very young, and I was completely besotted and in love with a straight guy who didn't nothing physical happened between us, so it wasn't a relationship.

It was pure unrequited love.

And he was actually married and he was not faithful to his wife.

And I would witness this sometimes without without him, like if we were out and about, I'd see him flirt with people, and it would break my heart seeing it happen.

And it's someone that I loved.

But also I was just so upset and angry that he was doing this in his life.

And so this is a song that I wrote from her perspective.

Wow, Yeah, it's pretty heartbreaking.

Yeah, you and me we made a fum pardo all the fun mode and I can't believe you let me.

But the proofs in the way.

Her from mons.

End of that, then Nevey.

And I wish this will be over now, but I know that I still meet tune.

He said, are grazed because you don't think you knowny.

Daughters, But where you car me by me?

And not the Naty only world.

You'vean sort of vada.

No Sady, I know.

Your heart is unertainable, even though the knows you can, he said, raise.

Because you nohing I know you man where you love me by me and not the nah.

The only world he know I loved you for money.

They behind and do honey know he made me realizes with the speeds.

Who by like he's having side, He said, razy.

Because you don't think a normal unger where you call me baby.

A novel Naty only one, the Nomernahyly.

The love of.

Nady only one.

No no no no no no no no.

Noanyly, How did you want around?

I love it?

After singing that song, I'm not the only one.

I we have both had like an album that is that was from my first album, and that album is kind of it's just so it's spread far and wide in such a beautiful way, does it.

I've I've started to get used to it now and I'm starting to be okay with it.

But as I'm getting older, it's like it's so it feels hot hot sometimes and hurt sometimes when you're bringing out music.

I bring out music now that I think is getting better and maturing and everything, but all people want to hear is missing that song.

And I just like, you're one of very few people that I think can relate to me in terms of like having like having an album spread far and wide like that.

Do you ever feel that?

Did you ever feel resentment?

I never felt resentment.

But on my first album, I was still really new to songwriting, so I only wrote.

There were only three songs on my first album that I wrote, so I think there was a little bit of a over the years.

I still feel connected to the album, of course, but I feel more connected to the ones I wrote, but the bulk of the album I really didn't write.

My bass player wrote, and my guitar player at the time wrote, and they're still really close to me.

But there is something different about singing your own words.

Yeah, it's really different.

So on your first album, you wrote all the songs, I.

Did, but they were also I was co writing for the first time ever too, so which was the whole thing.

It's like, you know, I was still very much there and writing, but my writing has got more and more me, I guess as I've got older.

So yeah, and you feel more yourself you're writing too.

And I don't.

I'm learning to not feel resemblement because it's a beautiful thing.

No, it's a beautiful thing.

I think it's easy to feel resentment.

I don't know if I ever felt like true resentment, but I definitely I have felt really lucky.

But I think you also create the path you're on.

Even though it's luck, it's also you're creating it as you go along.

And I think there's something really special about an artist who can get to ten years in.

You're ten years in.

I'm over twenty years in now from my first album, and I do feel like I'm still releasing music that I really believe in, and I feel like, even if it loses some of the audience, a lot of the audience does connect to it.

And I feel like by going out and playing shows and like being inspired, I'm very inspired.

The last ten years, I've felt more inspired than ever, and especially in writing and playing live.

And I think you're doing everything right.

You're surrounding yourself with a band you love, and you're playing these shows at the Warsaw and you're connecting with people in a special way.

And I think people once you get twenty years out, you'll see that whatever you're doing right now, put all that sort of work into keeping people connected to what you're doing at the moment.

It's just blocking out the noise.

Yeah, yeah, don't think about that, because you win some, you lose some.

I learned that with my first record.

Even my first record was a massive success, was it was one of those like crazy things, you know, and even then people talk about, you know again seeing the negative, and so I learned at that moment, I'm just going to do what makes me happy.

I mean, the first album, I was doing what made me happy.

That's how it came to be.

But okay, I'm not going to worry about this second album thing.

I'm not going to try to recreate it.

I'm just going to let it be what it was.

I probably won't sell as many records because that is crazy, and I'm okay with that, and I just want to stay inspired.

Because there was a moment at the end of that whole year and a half of the first record, I was on tour and all of a sudden, I wasn't happy and I'm like, what is happening?

And it was because it was too much, and it was I think I was just doing too much press, and I just I was like, we're pushing this album.

It's already crazy.

Why are you making me do all this stuff that I don't want to do?

You know, Let's just play music.

That's what this is about.

And so I took a step back and that's when I kind of realized that.

So from then and I really just tried to keep it focused on the things that bring me joy.

Beautiful, you know, and that's a lucky, very lucky place to be.

And it sounds like you have an amazing compass within you, and yeah, it's I feel like I just jumped straight into the monster's mouth.

Yeah, but I think I think you and then you cal back out again.

Well, you're out, the monster's my friend.

Yeah, it's fine.

Yeah, I think we all find our ways eventually.

And it's when when people don't that it's really you know, yeah, I think that's what people don't realize about this world of music and pop stardom.

And and I think fame, you know, fame is something that can kill you.

And it's yeah, it's not for everyone.

It's not everyone can handle it.

And you feel I feel lucky.

Also, I've had good people around me.

Do you feel yeah, it seems.

Like you have if I speak about it too much a Lolways, Yeah, there's just like I have the most amazing family, beautiful I do.

And I have the most amazing team.

Like my manager Jack is just an absolute anchor, and he's one of my best friends, and he has grown with me and learnt with me and moved and learned learned how to flow with me in such a beautiful way.

And everyone in my team, I've just I've I've and I'm very thankful actually to the artists that came before me in the UK and something that I've been learning about recently through do you know None.

They're incredible and She's she's such an an amazing person human artists and teacher and recently says guided me a little bit, and it's just awakened me to just the people that came before me, Boy George and them and George Michael and all these amazing queer artists that have come before me in my life and made it possible for me to have a chance at a healthy crack at this world of music, you know.

And so it's I'm very lucky.

I'm very very lucky, and I've been able to keep my composure and also part of part of my queerness has allowed me to do that too.

I never had like I never went I was became very well known if I knew I was, but I never had like the screaming girls outside the house or the all of that stuff.

I'd walk into gay bars and everyone been like who the which was kind of is annoying at the time, but also just like very very humbling, very very humbling, because you know, a lot of queer bars and queer people they care more about straight girl.

That's very funny.

So it was.

It's always been a beautiful safe space the land, you know that's good and grounding.

Yeah, I'm happy for you, thank you.

I'm very proud of you.

But yeah, it's been beautiful watching your whole whole journey.

And the music.

Let's get back to the music.

Did you you grew up in church, because you seem to love gospel music and the harmonies sort of lend itself to that.

I grew up in church.

Really the church, I mean, when I get down to it, I think that the music that my mum played at home and the songs that she would be drawn to from Aretha Franklin too, Shaka car George Michael, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston.

When I go, when I go back to those origins, when I first started listening to music, and what I was surrounded by.

Luther Vandros was a huge one, actually, one of the biggest.

It all came from the church, definitely, you know, and all of my mum's favorite songs of theirs came from the church.

And so that was my exposure.

And then I also went to church from a young age.

I went to Catholic school until I was eighteen.

Did you sing in the choir?

I sang in the choir the whole time, Latin hymns, Latin hymn ok.

Yeah, which I found tough.

But then there was some moments in my secondary school where I had some amazing music teachers.

They loved some gospel songs and they would have me and the choirs sing some of those songs in church too.

So I got to experience that in church, and so it's a part of my life.

I wouldn't sound religious.

I'm a spiritual person now, but I would always feel connected and there's certain words that find their way into my music that come from the church and I think it's as there's certain feelings that are so big, and I revert to those words to explain those feelings.

Sometimes you know, they become universal in a in a deep way.

Yeah, yeah for sure.

So yeah.

But I love gospel music, and as I've got older, it's just become more and more for passion and love.

How many singers do you have in your band?

I only have three.

I mean on all of the songs that I that you hear choirs on on my music.

Before the music I'm working on now was me.

There was just loads of me and.

I love doing this, which is so fun fun.

Well, you said in the text message you don't sing harmony?

No, well I do sing how many when I'm layering like that?

But you don't think and dream and harmony?

No, you don't like harmonize.

I always go to the background singer when I'm singing along.

Well yeah, I always know.

I'm always obnoxiously like kind of dueting.

I always go to the back grounds or the harmonies, and that's what I hee wow yeah beautiful.

No, I'm yeah, I'm always I find I find music like harmonizing and stuff like that.

I find it quite daunting sometimes because I don't have the brain for it.

I'm more of a jazz singer, i'd say, and that's more of my main influences have come from jazz as well.

Really, yeah, like Frank Sinatra in my house was a massive thing, and wine house was a huge thing in my house, and then that led me to Saravon.

Savon's one of my favorites.

I think she's my favorite artist of all time.

You know that version of my Funny Valentine where she goes all over the place, her.

Singing misty, It's just my favorite thing.

Yeah.

So yeah, I just I love music and I and I and I'm trying to honor those roots more and more in the music that I'm making now, which is amazing.

And I'm actually like, I've worked with incredible choir called the Two City Choir.

They're from Philly and from all over actually, and they've come to New York a few times now.

Wow, And they're on the song to Be Free and.

Okay, that's who that is.

That that's beautiful and they're insane and like, yeah, well it just feels so.

Right.

Well I'm feeling from moving to New York, I'm finally feeling that I've actually got some exposure now to players and musicians that are actually fit more into what I've always been.

Inspired by the music you came up with.

Yeah, because I came up with American music.

Yeah.

I love American music, and so it's you know, I sing an American, you know, I don't sing in English in British, you know, So there's moments that you can hear it, but I mainly sing an American.

So I I it's been amazing to be in New York and actually like to be close to some people where you're like, oh, that would sound and made that bass player would sound insane on this, and then you start it's amazing.

But there's still incredible talent in the UK that that has pulled that together in the past.

Yeah.

No, it's just a different scene and it's big.

It's maybe bigger here, it's bigger.

And you're also just like you're rooted to the earth and of what you're doing, of what you're doing just listening to jazz music and walking around Manhattan, like that's what I do now.

I listened to I put on my jazz music and I walk around Manhattan and do my do my errands, and it's amazing.

There's something different about this to jazz in New York.

I don't know what it is.

It feels different being here.

Yeah, it feels more because some of it was recorded just down the street.

Yeah, yeah, I had that experience the other night.

We were listening to a live Bill Love's album from the Village Vanguard, and we're like, thinking that was recorded right over there.

Yeah, it's cool.

So the spirit of the and there's a romance to New York that suits me very well.

I love it.

That's good.

You're still in the honeymoon phase for sure.

For sure.

I mean I've had tough moments the last year where get me out of here.

I'm still trying to find where that is.

I think I'm going to go to the jungle.

That's where you want to live next?

No, I think I want to always live in New York.

But I think I want to jule if I am, if I'm lucky enough to be to afford somewhere to escape to, like a little shack.

I think I just want to go to the jungle because I feel like I live in the jungle now in New York.

But then so I think like I've been going to the jungle over the last few years ago.

Yeah, Costa Rica and like going.

I've also gone to the Caribbean a bit more because it's only three hours away from here, and I just like, I think I might be in my tropical era.

It's amazing.

When I hear that, all I think about is mosquitoes.

Oh my god, in a magnet.

Same, that's my only love me.

I'm like a cream puff.

I mean, they love me.

But you just got a spray.

Just get in on the spray.

And the more you live there, you acclimatize.

They stop liking the way you taste, I guess.

And also people just don't stay outside that much.

I've noticed people that live there like hours of the day to stay in and out, whereas when we're there, we're just like trying to soak up the song.

Well, I saw something that you posted the other day.

You did this beautiful Tom Putty cover.

Oh gosh ya.

Yeah, I first heard that song in a film called Elizabethtown.

Oh I didn't know the song.

It's amazing.

It's in a film called Elizabethtown with Kirston Dunce and which was beautiful film.

But that song just knocked me Sideways when I watched that film, and so I've loved that song for a while.

And it's also been like a little like when I have my big first heartbreak.

I turned to this song a lot, but there it was just when I was putting this show together for the Warsaw, there was just this I was singing stay with Me, and I just really wanted to start telling some real stories that the Warsaw about that people have never heard.

It's a real life.

I went to a copyright issue with Tom Petty for the songs stay with Me, and it just like, it was such a hard thing that was on your first album, So my first album, that must have felt so bad.

It was.

It was so bad.

I was so confused.

So I was just so confused, firstly because I was I come from a hill in the middle of England.

I didn't know who Tom Petty was.

I'm gay, Like some gay people might have known who Tom Petty was when they were like eleven years old, not me.

I was just listening to women singing the whole time, and his beautiful music never made its way to my heart until later on.

So when that happened, it was I felt like I was being robbed.

Well, it feels like a shaming sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah, it makes me Yeah.

And because it was in the news everywhere, it was almost like everyone being like, you're not an original, you know, that's.

Tripping you of your your whatever, your metals or something at the end of the like the Olympics are.

And and then when it got to the Grammys though, I think that there was probably people that wanted me, you know, taken out of the Grammys and all of that stuff because they didn't want me to because there was a reason for me to not be, you know, awarded for that song.

So it was, it was it was hard, It was confusing and frustrating.

And he wrote me a letter.

The night before the Grammys, a letter came to my door and he wrote me a letter, and he was so sweet in the letter.

He did say in the letter he said, I'm sorry this still happening.

I think you're amazing.

And he said there's only so many notes on the piano in the letter, which, if I'm honest, at the time, made me annoyed because I was like, if you know that, then why are we doing this?

Yeah, do you know?

I mean, like, why has this happened, if you're aware of that.

But it's what people don't know about this stuff is it's more than just the artists.

It's everyone around them and the whole infrastructure of things that come into play.

But when I got the note, I was a little bit annoyed but also touched.

And I at the time, I was twenty two, and I went from working in a bar to being known around the world and traveling around the world touring within two years.

So I had trauma that happened within those years to my body and my brain, and so I didn't get to respond to him for a couple of years, and I'm so upset with myself that I never did right back.

But I didn't write back, and he died, so he never got to and I never got to write back, and I feel awful about it and still and that's why there's a healing going on now for me.

When I I want to sing this song and I want to, I think I actually want to sing more of his songs maybe and like every now and then put them into my set as just an ode to him, because I feel connected to him.

We've connected to each other some way, and so I did it and it felt really really good.

To do it.

Yeah, I loved the way you posted about it as well.

It was really beautiful.

But that story is insane.

Is insane, is insane, and it's like the worst part is I never actually listened to I went back down the song for years, and then like five years later I listened to I was like, oh my god, like it's the exact same you heard it.

It's the exact same, but it's I mean, it's.

But it's still but it's so different.

That's it.

Such different songs, such different and there are only twelve notes on the piano, you.

Know, and I did it differently, and he did it differently, and there was probably someone before here, yes, most likely did it differently too, you know.

So it's it's an interesting one, but it's definitely definitely changed my you know, Look, I don't know how i'd feel if someone actually ripped, like if someone had released a song that sounded exactly like to Be Free or or something like that.

I don't know how I would feel in the moment.

But what has happened to me will one hundred percent come into play a little bit.

Yeah, And I'm not sure if I would go forth vigorously.

Yeah, that's a really traumatic thing to happen.

I feel like as a young person thrust into the world of music.

Yeah, And the one thing I would definitely implore is when this does happen, talk to each other, artist to artist if that is possible.

Yeah, you know, but lawyers would be like, don't do that, it would I just wish that, especially when there's two well known artists though both like you know in pop music, and it's and it's happened, like sit and talk to each other.

But again, everybody's got so many people surrounding them that are doing different things money well.

I mean, I think it's obvious when you hear something that is a real rip off, Like you know, I hear all these songs on the radio, and I'm like, that is the product.

It's more about the production.

Usually, I feel like they're just trying to get the exact vibe of the song from thirty years ago or whatever it was.

And that does happen.

That happens, But it does happen, And that actually happens subconsciously too.

It does, and you've got to be able to hold your hands up and be like, that's happened.

I do think that people can also take into account when dealing with the procedures, what that what the artists are going through.

You know, if you're if you're a very prolific artist that has has your career and has all this money behind you, then maybe you can be graceful.

A little graceful.

Yeah, but I think it's really sweet.

And Tom was graceful by the way, Yeah he was.

He was even in the what ended up happening with that song.

Legally he was graceful.

Was lucky.

Well, I like that you're doing this song, and I like that it's your way of writing him back.

Yeah.

I think it's very sweet.

What a song.

It's such well, he has so many great songs, but this is one I had never heard, and I thought I'd finally heard them all what I have.

It's just like I love it.

Yeah, they're beautiful.

I want to do it.

I did it differently where there was more breaks in between each thing.

But you'll hear it when we do it.

Do you want to lead the the bits then?

I think so, Yeah, that way, I won't go to the court until you do the pick up.

I think so.

Is that cool?

Yeah?

Okay, that will help me.

Yeah again, we'll see what happens.

I can sit for this one.

Okay, cool?

You want fa.

So eyes so blue, they looked like weather.

When he need me, I wasn't around.

That's the way it.

Goes in along.

There were times upon.

There were times two together.

I was fleshed to him through so bitter when in mine and most I let him down.

That's the way it goes in along.

Work goes.

In work.

He better round with him then with me?

Mm hmm, here it all work out.

Evly be around with him there with me.

Now the wind is high and the rain is silly, and the world is around.

Say leave me.

Still.

I'm then come him when the sun.

Goes down and never goes away.

You know, said.

Hiding that event should better love.

With him than with me.

Along again, event should had along with him, and he.

With I try not to cry that whole time.

That turned into such a sad heartbreak.

It's terrible.

The way you play is so beautiful.

Thank you.

The way you say it's so beautiful.

It's funny because the tom version of the song is so like it's like Irish, I.

Must It's like Irish with like a there's a it's a it feels like an Asian instrument, right, Yeah, it's like some Chinese instrument.

Yeah, I think so we came here.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Well that was beautiful.

That's beautiful.

It's it's like singing it now is like it's an emotional song for me.

But like with the story that I'm telling, it's also like the one of the lyrics is like when it mattened most, I let him down.

That's the way it goes all.

I'm just it feels like I feel it's I don't know.

There's so many moments that I've had in my life, especially with artists.

I look back at the beginning of my career and I'm like, that person wrote to me, that person said something to me, and I'm I didn't I didn't write back.

I didn't write back.

Keep the letters.

I have a few of those two and.

It's it's not it's just because I was running at such a high speed that I I didn't treasure those moments enough.

Sometimes you know, Yeah, I have those situations too.

It's weird people.

I have messages that I never called the person back, and I think it was part anxiety too.

It was part busyness, but part anxiety of not knowing how.

To how to fully do it, how to do it.

I remember the first time I met Beyonce, and I've met her a few times now, but I'm always so ashamed of the first time I ever met her.

She invited me into a dressing room and I'm such huge Beyonce fan.

She was, and it is always my ultimate I think actually in today's times.

And I went into her dressing room and she was there in a private space, and I asked for a picture, and you felt bad about that, awful And I still do to this day, because it's like it's just like now, I know how it feels, yea to have someone in your space, and like I was still very kind and sweet and thankful, and I'm sure she's used to that happening a lot.

I'm sure.

I'm just like, damn it.

I wish I was cooler.

I wish I was cooler, And I just didn't do that because I didn't need it.

I didn't need a picture.

Yeah, I didn't need a picture.

Don't beat yourself up.

I beat myself up about stuff like that too, But I think it's okay.

We're all human, Yeah, yeah, but yeah, well now you're present.

And here's the thing though, people who reached out to us when we were little babies starting out, they were already past where we are now, so they understood, they understood it's okay, yeah for sure.

Yeah yeah, and we're older and maybe we'll reach out more.

I'm not good at that.

Do you reach out too?

I used to?

There was like I remember when like Billie Eilish came up and a few people, it was like I just survived my wave of stuff and I and I felt I wrote a few notes to people just saying like I'm always here, yeah, And then I just kind of realized that, like, that's very different what they're going through to what I'm going through.

This isn't some this isn't something that's the same.

Yeah, you know, and you're self conscious about the letter and yeah, of god, that's me.

I'm just like all the time, Wait, so did you send it?

I did send that, and they replied and they they and I saw them at their show in London and they were wonderful to me and very sweet and was great.

But I definitely realized in that moment that that's probably not my role in an industry.

I think that I if anyone, you know, if anyone ever needs me or wants to talk to me, I'm there and I would love to.

But you're not going to impose yourself.

I'm not going to impose myself because we're just so different.

This isn't like a race.

It's not a race.

It's it's a it's a music is so personal, and what you go through and what I go through is so different, like just my just being queer myself and and and like what I'm and what you've gone through in your life.

It's just so it's so singular.

I see all these amazing artists come out and like they really are just amazing.

They're amazing, kind of crazy.

Yeah it's beautiful.

Yeah, well you're one of them.

And thank you so much for doing this.

This is kind of my way of doing that is getting to be with people and share things with them.

And what an amazing thing to do.

It's just it feels you made me feel very safe today.

It's good.

Thank you.

Just singing hearing you play that song just there, it's just highlight for me.

Well, I hope I can come to the worst song one night.

I can't wait please Yeah, yay think ooh that made me happy.

Oh that was incredible.

I love all their stories, like I know, just what a human Yeah yeah.

And that's something about the residencies I think is like you can hear more of these stories, the stories behind the music, you know, which is really such a big part of it.

I think these residencies are kind of I think they're what a lot of artists want to do nowadays.

I've talked about doing something like that too.

It just feels like a really beautiful way to connect with people and to sort of also not be so hard on yourself.

Touring can be a hard life, so it's kind of a nice way to plant yourself somewhere and just to be free, to be free do the thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you'd like to know what songs we played today, we did the song to Be Free that Sam just released in twenty twenty five.

We also did I'm Not the Only One from in the Lonely Hour, which was released in twenty fourteen, and we did It'll All Work Out, the Tom Petty song from Let Me Up I've Had Enough, released in nineteen eighty seven.

Special thanks to Sam Smith for joining us today.

We'll be back next week with Nate Smith.

Visit Nora Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there.

Nora Jones Is Playing Along is a production of iHeart Podcast I'm Your Host Norah Jones.

This episode was recorded by Matt Marinelli, mixed by Jamie Landry.

Audio post production and mastering by Greg Tobler.

Artwork by Eliza Frye, Photography by Shervin Linez.

Produced by Nora Jones and Sarah Oda.

Executive producers Aaron Wang Kaufman and Jordan Runtog Marketing Lead Queen and a Key