Album: What Will We Be (2009)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This breezy love song is the first single from psyche-folk singer-songwriter Devandra Banhart's seventh studio album, What Will We Be.
  • The album is Banhart's major-label debut for Warner Brothers. The label's executive VP of marketing, Diarmuid Quinn, told Billboard magazine that this sprightly R&B flavored groover was chosen as the album's lead single as, "everybody felt was a pretty accessible step for him, while maintaining what he does so well and his identity."
  • What Will We Be was recorded in a studio that Banhart built in a wood cabin in a sleepy Northern California town. Banhart and Paul Butler from UK's Band of Bees co-produced the album. Banhart explained to Clash Magazine how he hooked up with Butler: "My bass player was working on his solo record and played me 'Chicken Payback' and I freaked out. I love their song writing, I love the whole band's vibe. The sound was so good, I immediately started sending them love letters, hoping for a moderate degree of antipathy from him. And then, as that progressed, we started sharing songs, and I said, 'S--t, want to come to California and maybe record this record with me?' And he said, 'Yeah', and came down from the Isle of Wight."

    Banhart added: "What he really brought to the table was his musicality. For the first time ever he got me to do an hour-long vocal warm-up before every take. I think it adds more of a hotch potch."
  • Banhart explained to Rolling Stone how he came upon the title for What Will We Be: "I find myself meditating on Kleenex and thinking about how it used to be a tree" he revealed, "and what will I be, and sometimes I feel like my soul is blowing its nose on my body, so somehow a title came out about that."

Comments: 1

  • Manny from Dalls, TxJust so everyone can know and be as surprised as I was this isn't an original song, nope, check out the duet version by Tennessee Ernie Ford with Glen Campbell. Yes, you read correctly. It's very interesting to hear that version. :)
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Tommy James

Tommy JamesSongwriter Interviews

"Mony Mony," "Crimson and Clover," "Draggin' The Line"... the hits kept coming for Tommy James, and in a plot line fit for a movie, his record company was controlled by the mafia.

Steely Dan

Steely DanFact or Fiction

Did they really trade their guitarist to The Doobie Brothers? Are they named after something naughty? And what's up with the band name?

David Gray

David GraySongwriter Interviews

David Gray explains the significance of the word "Babylon," and talks about how songs are a form of active imagination, with lyrics that reveal what's inside us.

JJ Burnel of The Stranglers

JJ Burnel of The StranglersSongwriter Interviews

JJ talks about The Stranglers' signature sound - keyboard and bass - which isn't your typical strain of punk rock.

Tim McIlrath of Rise Against

Tim McIlrath of Rise AgainstSongwriter Interviews

Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath explains the meanings behind some of their biggest songs and names the sci-fi books that have influenced him.

George Clinton

George ClintonSongwriter Interviews

When you free your mind, your ass may follow, but you have to make sure someone else doesn't program it while it's wide open.