Hideaway

Album: Sound of a Woman (2014)
Charted: 1 51
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Songfacts®:

  • Kiesa Rae Ellestad is a singer-songwriter from Calgary, Canada who performs under the moniker of Kiesza. Before embarking on a music career she spent time with the reserves of the Royal Canadian Navy as a code breaker and competed in Miss Universe Canada.

    She wrote her first song at the age of 18 as a way of expressing her feelings about her parents' divorce and soon started performing her tunes live.

    Kiesza moved to Boston after obtaining a scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music and after completing her studies she went to New York City to advance her music career before settling in London.
  • This is her first single after signing to indie label Lokal Legend in 2013. Kiesza told Planet Notion the story of the song. "I was just about to head to the airport to board a plane to LA. At the time, I was in New York and I was going to head out there as my writing was picking up," she recalled.

    "I was ready to board a plane and Rami – the producer I work with – had started working on this track in the studio and it sounded really cool. It reminded me of a lot of the people that I'm into, so I asked if I could jump on the mic before I had to go. The entire song just came out. Everything you hear was finished in an hour-and-a-half. It just poured out. I nearly missed my flight; it was like a scene from a movie."

    "Two days later, I get this call from Rami saying, 'I think you need to come back to New York," she added. "That's when I knew I'd found a sound that really worked for me."
  • The song's video is a continuous shot that follows Kiesza as she dances her way through the streets of Williamsburg, New York. The Canadian singer had trouble making the clip. A trained ballerina, she was given only three days to learn five completely new dance styles, then on the day of the shoot, she broke a rib. Kiesza told Rolling Stone: "I did the video in two takes and couldn't move for an entire month afterward, but I pulled it off."
  • So why Kiesza? She explained to Redbull.co.uk: "I was just a weird child – my name was originally spelled Kiesa and as a kid I really liked the s and the z. I liked that they look almost like a reflection. I just started spelling it that way and it stuck."
  • Kiesza made her US TV debut on July 9, 2014 on The Late Show With David Letterman, where she performed this song.
  • Kiesza told Q magazine: "I was thinking of my love for Chicago house, soul and '90s divas, and a song just clicked. 'Hideaway' was written, recorded, mixed and mastered on 90 minutes."
  • Kiesza won three Junos at the 2015 ceremony. She was awarded Breakout Song for this tune, Best Dance Recording for her Sound Of A Woman album and Breakthrough Artist.

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