Stay
by Kygo

Album: Cloud Nine (2015)
Charted: 20
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song features vocals by 18-year-old LA-based singer-songwriter Maty Noyes, whose voice you might recognize from the closing track "Angel" on The Weeknd's Beauty Behind the Madness. "She sent me over the demo. I loved it," Kygo told MTV News. "Loved her voice. It was so unique. I just liked the idea and gave it a try. It was actually kind of a quick process. I feel like when I get the demos - I get a lot of demos - but when I get the right demo, I get very inspired. I produce around it, and it often goes very fast."
  • Noyes envisioned working with Kygo on the tune as soon as she'd penned the demo. "I actually co-wrote the song in maybe two to three hours, laid the vocals and thought to myself, 'The only thing it's missing is a drop from Kygo,'" she told MTV News. "We thought, let's try and send it to him, and within days, he almost had it done. It came so easy, was sort of unbelievable. Having not met him during that process, a month later my friend invited me over to hang, and Kygo was there along with his crew. It was totally serendipitous and such a special way to meet. Some things are just meant to be!"
  • Maty Noyes sings here of the hard decision to leave a lover, when a big part of her still wants to stay with him. She explained her lyrics in a Genius attribution:

    "I'm usually not the kind of person who will stay and stick around but in this case it was with someone that I really really really liked and had a lot of hope for. It was just enough power to make me stay but even though I knew it wasn't the best idea. Every now and then someone will come along that makes you stay."

    Noyes added: "Everyone has their ways of getting over things, some people write in a journal, some people go talk to someone, but for me the only way to get over things is to just write a song about it. After writing 'Stay' for like an hour or two it started pouring out, and after that I was pretty much over it. I could go on and say 'okay you know what I wrote this song it's time to move on to something else and get over this.'"

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Top American Idol Moments: Songs And Scandals

Top American Idol Moments: Songs And ScandalsSong Writing

Surprise exits, a catfight and some very memorable performances make our list of the most memorable Idol moments.

Mike Scott of The Waterboys

Mike Scott of The WaterboysSongwriter Interviews

The stories behind "Whole Of The Moon" and "Red Army Blues," and why rock music has "outlived its era of innovation."

Dave Edmunds

Dave EdmundsSongwriter Interviews

A renowned guitarist and rock revivalist, Dave took "I Hear You Knocking" to the top of the UK charts and was the first to record Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk."

Lip-Synch Rebels

Lip-Synch RebelsSong Writing

What happens when Kurt Cobain, Iron Maiden and Johnny Lydon are told to lip-synch? Some hilarious "performances."

Michael Bolton

Michael BoltonSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for this talk with Bolton from the '80s when he was a focused on writing songs for other artists.

Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde

Johnette Napolitano of Concrete BlondeSongwriter Interviews

The singer/bassist for Concrete Blonde talks about how her songs come from clairvoyance, and takes us through the making of their hit "Joey."