Power

Album: Brightest Blue (2020)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song is about how love in the 21st century is dictated by social media, superficiality and material things.

    Everything in your world just feels like plastic
    Wearing your crown, it's pulling me down
    You just want the power
    You're not really down for love


    Said Goulding: "Dating can sometimes start out with lies or embellishments. The girl in the song is disillusioned by love and the cruel, good looking, self-obsessed people she keeps ending up with."
  • Goulding wrote the song with Jonny Coffer and Jamie Scott. Coffer and Scott also produced the track and played bass, guitar and keyboards.

    Lucy Taylor, Digital Farm Animals and Jack Tarrant are credited as the track samples Dua Lipa's 2015 track "Be The One."

    David Paich receives a credit as the song sounds similar to Toto's "Georgy Porgy."
  • Goulding filmed the song's music video in lockdown at her home in London. Imogen Snell and Riccardo Castano of ISSTUDIO (Madonna's "Medellín," The XX's "On Hold") directed the clip over FaceTime.

    Goulding filmed herself in lingerie, "stuff I wouldn't dream of ever wearing in bed, because that s--t is uncomfortable," she told The Guardian. "It was incredibly liberating. It wasn't like I'd suddenly bloomed and become this sexual thing, I'd always been that. But there's a difference between being it because you felt that you had to be, and then being it because you truly feel it and you can embrace it."
  • Goulding recalled to Apple Music how "Power" ended up accidentally sampling Toto's "Georgy Porgy."

    "We wrote the verses on piano and then I wrote with Jamie Scott. So Jamie wrote a bunch of the early One Direction stuff and then he worked with Niall (Horan) and Harry (Styles) and so he's done a lot of pop stuff. He is a beautiful pianist, a beautiful writer, has an incredible voice. And he sat down and wrote and we have this piano thing, but you know what? Then somebody was like, 'Wait, that sounds a bit like a Toto song.' But I mean, I didn't know this and then we look it up and yes, it sounds like a song that was written by the guy from Toto."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Director Mark Pellington ("Jeremy," "Best Of You")

Director Mark Pellington ("Jeremy," "Best Of You")Song Writing

Director Mark Pellington on Pearl Jam's "Jeremy," and music videos he made for U2, Jon Bon Jovi and Imagine Dragons.

Why Does Everybody Hate Nu-Metal? Your Metal Questions Answered

Why Does Everybody Hate Nu-Metal? Your Metal Questions AnsweredSong Writing

10 Questions for the author of Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces

Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & PalmerSongwriter Interviews

Greg talks about writing songs of "universal truth" for King Crimson and ELP, and tells us about his most memorable stage moment (it involves fireworks).

Paul Williams

Paul WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."

Harry Wayne Casey of KC and The Sunshine Band

Harry Wayne Casey of KC and The Sunshine BandSongwriter Interviews

Harry Wayne Casey tells the stories behind KC and The Sunshine Band hits like "Get Down Tonight," "That's The Way (I Like It)," and "Give It Up."

Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, Heaven And Hell

Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, Heaven And HellSongwriter Interviews

Guitarist Tony Iommi on the "Iron Man" riff, the definitive Black Sabbath song, and how Ozzy and Dio compared as songwriters.