Higher

Album: yet to be titled (2021)
Charted: 66
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Songfacts®:

  • Released on January 28, 2021, this fresh and breezy song finds guest vocalist Iann Dior singing of how his love for his girl elevates him so much his head is in the clouds. All she has to do is look at him with her eyes and he's feeling "higher, higher, higher."
  • "Higher" is Clean Bandit's first collaboration with the Puerto Rican-American rapper Iann Dior, who is best known for the 2020 hit he recorded with 24kGoldn, "Mood."
  • Clean Bandit's Jack Patterson and Iann Dior wrote the song with Bastille's frontman Dan Smith, who also contributed backing vocals.
  • Patterson also co-produced the song with bandmate Grace Chatto and frequent collaborator Mark Ralph ("Rockabye,"
    "Symphony," "Solo").
  • This is one of about 20 songs Clean Bandit penned in Los Angeles in the month before the COVID pandemic. Chatto explained to The Sun they'd written "just the bare bones" and the coronavirus pandemic afforded them the time to expand and fine-tune the 20 demos.

    "It was beautiful to just have that time and that creative space to work on stuff we had started when we were in LA," she said. "Now we have loads of songs with various lyricists and friends out there, it was perfect timing and just what we needed to get our head around all this material we had started."
  • Jack Patterson and his Clean Bandit drummer, his brother Luke, directed the song's music video. Filmed in Jamaica in late 2020, the clip features Iann Dior and a guest appearance from Jamaican reggae artist Shaggy. Chatto told The Sun Jack Patterson wanted to film at sunrise and sunset each day so they "were getting up at 3 a.m. and filming long hours."

    She added that Dior "was so up for everything." For instance, when they asked him, "Can you throw yourself off this cliff into the sea," he willingly did so. "He was down for everything," Chatto said. "I'm glad he survived. I'm glad we all survived, actually."
  • Clean Bandit got the baby voice that says "I love you" several times throughout the track from The Garden Sample Pack. Grace Chatto had planned to replace it with her grandson but he struggled to say "love" so they kept the original sample.

Comments: 1

  • Ds from California Does anyone know who’s saying “I love you” throughout the track?
see more comments

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