Rumer is the performing name of Sarah Rumer Joyce, who spent the early years of her life in Pakistan, where her father was the chief-engineer of the enormous Tarbela Dam, 30 miles to the northwest of Islamabad. The youngest of seven children, living in an expat colony without TV or newspapers, Rumer and her family would often sing and write songs together. Her brother Rob gave Rumer her first guitar; which she taught herself to play, and on which, years later, she wrote all the songs on her debut album, Seasons of My Soul. Life changed when the family returned to the UK and settled in the New Forest. Rumer's parents separated at the age of eleven, when it emerged that her biological father was in fact the family's Pakistani cook, with whom her mother had struck up a relationship. She left school at 16, and began to drift; studying at Art College in Devon and then joining a fledgling indie rock band, La Honda. Rumer's breakthrough came when she met award-winning TV and musical composer Steve Brown who has written songs for Harry Hill and featured in the Alan Partridge TV show Knowing Me, Knowing You as band leader Glenn Ponder. Brown became Rumer's producer and together they wrote the songs that comprise Seasons of My Soul.
This gentle, jazz-inflicted ballad is lead single from Seasons of My Soul. Rumer explained on her website that it's is a stop-what-you're-doing torch song "about being obsessive in a new relationship. It's a love song, but it's unrequited love, and the chorus has that Greek Chorus effect, advising me not to fall in love too fast."
By the end of the song the narrator's lover has appeared to have changed his mind about the relationship. Rumer commented to the Nottingham Post that the lyrics reflect how men like to take things slower than women at the beginning of a relationship. Said Rumer: "It's not that he doesn't want it, it's just that men tend to will you not to screw it up. In the beginning of relationship, they desperately want the female not to overdo it, you know? In a way, they're willing you not to push it. Like saying 'I love you' too quickly, or stuff like that."
Rumer explained to the Nottingham Post the Greek chorus effect of the song's chorus: "They're the angels. The Greek chorus was the PR company's words, but actually I believe in angels. I completely, 100%, believe in angels. And angels are in all my songs. You can hear them; you'll hear the 'they' in all the songs. Their voices are all there. And you think: where are they coming from? And they're not coming from me. They're angels. I know this sounds a bit funny! (Laughs)."
Rumer explained her songwriting process in an interview with CMU: "I work like I imagine a painter does. I get a sense of a feeling or sentiment I want to express, and see pictures or moving images in my mind. Then I make musical sketches with vocal and guitar, record them on tape, and live with them, building on the ideas, filling in the colours. Then I record them again and add harmonies til there is form and structure. Then I will share it with my producer and he usually transposes it to piano and sometimes he adds his own arrangement, sometimes not."
A music video was made for the song and was added to YouTube on July 28, 2010. The visual was shot in a recording studio. A second video was shot in Paris. Rumer said of the clip: "[The record label] wanted to do something in Paris, so we went. Actually it was my first time in Paris. I find it hilarious because being someone from London, it's ridiculous I've never been to Paris, you know? I always thought I was saving it for a very special man, or I was saving it for something. And as it turns out the first time I went to Paris, and I did every cliché that you could possibly imagine - one after the other and in the most ridiculous style. I was driving around in this fabulous car in full makeup, styled and n the style of Barbra Streisand. It was kind of funny."
