Gravity

Album: True Meanings (2018)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Paul Weller's 26th album, True Meanings, is a collection of gentle pastoral songs. This is the oldest song on the record, penned originally in 2011-12, which the singer then stockpiled. Weller explained to Uncut:

    "It started with a song Gravity, which I wrote a while ago and didn't fit on the last two records. So I built the album round that song. I wanted to find a home for it as I loved it so much. So I thought why not write the whole album like it? It's certainly reflective. At 60 I thought if you're ever going to be reflective, now is the time."
  • Irish singer-songwriter Declan O'Rourke's 2012 song "Galileo" was a game changer for Weller, throwing him into a comparable reverie.

    Who puts the rainbow in the sky?
    Who lights the stars at night?
    Who dreamt up someone so divine?
    Someone like you and made them mine?


    Weller wondered if he could ever write something that could be anywhere as good as "Galileo." In attempting to do so, Weller wrote of "golden lions in Golden Square," where "salutations fill the air," comparing his love to the elemental force that gave the resulting song its name: "Gravity." The song was a musical rebirth, pointing the way to a hitherto unexplored area of his own songwriting. "l wrote True Meanings around that," he told Uncut magazine. "I needed to create an acoustic record to make a home for it."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

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."

Jack Blades of Night Ranger and Damn Yankees

Jack Blades of Night Ranger and Damn YankeesSongwriter Interviews

Revisit the awesome glory of Night Ranger and Damn Yankees: cheesily-acted videos, catchy guitar licks, long hair, and lyrics that are just plain relatable.

Glen Ballard

Glen BallardSongwriter Interviews

Glen Ballard talks about co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album, and his work with Dave Matthews, Aerosmith and Annie Lennox.

Randy Newman

Randy NewmanSongwriting Legends

Newman makes it look easy these days, but in this 1974 interview, he reveals the paranoia and pressures that made him yearn for his old 9-5 job.

They Might Be Giants

They Might Be GiantsSongwriter Interviews

Who writes a song about a name they found in a phone book? That's just one of the everyday things these guys find to sing about. Anything in their field of vision or general scope of knowledge is fair game. If you cross paths with them, so are you.

Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics)

Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics)Songwriter Interviews

Mike Rutherford talks about the "Silent Running" storyline and "Land Of Confusion" in the age of Trump.