Deep End
by Zada

Album: Water In The Desert (2023)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • In the third single from her debut album, Canadian R&B singer Zada is tired of letting her fears and doubts hold her back, so she embraces them by taking a metaphorical plunge into the deep end. "You won't find me stuck in a place where forward motion stops," she promises. "You can't replace the seconds lost."
  • Zada wrote this with her producers Chin Injeti and Brian West while they were working at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios near the city of Bath in England. When Zada was on the way back to her hotel after recording the initial track, inspiration struck in the back of a taxi cab.

    She recalled in a Glide Magazine interview: "Suddenly, an idea came, but I was in a taxi, I couldn't pull over. I couldn't shout, 'Y'all have to be quiet! Excuse me!' I went back to my hotel, and I happened to be sharing a hotel room with my mom, so I had 20 minutes to record it before she went to sleep, since it was 11:30 at night. I was whispering it into the microphone! Then we brought that in and recorded it the next day."

    Once the team returned home to Vancouver, they put the finishing touches on the tune at The Warehouse Studio, including additional pianos, vocals, guitars, and synths.
  • In a 2024 Songfacts Podcast interview, Zada said this is one of her most popular songs among live audiences. "People seem to really like when we lean into the rock-alternative side of things, especially in the live shows," she explained. "Like we'll go there a bit more after the first couple of times playing it, but some people are like, 'Whoa, everyone else was doing this thing and then you went here and we were not expecting that.' So that's fun."
  • Blake Jorgenson and Leo Hoorn, who directed the music videos for Zada's previous singles, "Atlantic Times" and "Sweet Things In Life," also took the lead on this clip, which follows the singer as she communes with nature, including floating on her back in the sea as she sings.

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