Midnight

Album: Glasshouse (2017)
Charted: 89
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This was released as the lead single from Jessie Ware's third studio album, Glasshouse. The song is a meditation on desire and longing. "'Midnight' is the song I've always wanted to be able to sing but perhaps didn't have the confidence until now," said the English songstress.
  • Ware wrote much the Glasshouse album while pregnant with her first baby. Its title came from a poem by Edward Thomas called "I Built Myself a House of Glass." Asked by Billboard magazine about the reasoning behind the album name, Ware replied:

    "Glasshouse, I guess for me represents this beautiful thing, which is very easy to shatter. I've become a mother; it's changed my world for the better. But I'm also learning how to do it. Also, I think I've given more of myself in this record. Like, I've let people know more about me than maybe I have before, which I was ready to do and I was kind of unaware that I was doing until listening back to what songs I've chosen.

    There's a lot about my family and relationships and my baby and my husband - quite directly [there is a song] called 'Sam.' So, it's about me working out this situation and trying to do the best, but also knowing that it's quite a fragile, funny situation."
  • The song's music video, filmed on the streets of Mallorca, Spain, was directed by Tom Beard. The clip follows Ware wandering streets at nighttime, with flashes of a mysterious male body submerged in the ocean. It is the second part of a two-part-story – The visual for "Selfish Love" provides the back story. "We shot from 1am until the sun came up and the video was so much fun to make," Ware said.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Little Big Town

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."

Millie Jackson

Millie JacksonSongwriter Interviews

Outrageously gifted and just plain outrageous, Millie is an R&B and Rap innovator.

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17

Martyn Ware of Heaven 17Songwriter Interviews

Martyn talks about producing Tina Turner, some Heaven 17 hits, and his work with the British Electric Foundation.

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In Songs

Sending Out An SOS - Distress Signals In SongsSong Writing

Songs where something goes horribly wrong (literally or metaphorically), and help is needed right away.

John Lee Hooker

John Lee HookerSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.