Stay The Night
by Zedd

Album: Clarity (2013)
Charted: 2 18
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This is one of three tracks added to the deluxe edition of EDM producer Zedd's debut album Clarity. The song features Paramore's Hayley Williams singing, "Are you gonna stay the night?" over one of his signature club beats. "I love building a track around a vocal," said Zedd. "It enables me to marry the melodies and harmonies together so they fit like a glove which is what I tried to do with 'Stay The Night.' Hayley sounds amazing on the record, she really brought it to life with her emotion and attitude."
  • According to Zedd, the original idea was to have a guy singing lead. "We had the topline written and we needed a singer, and we were kind of brainstorming on who would be a good fit; at first we thought it might be better to have a male singer," Zedd told MTV News. "But then, since I know Hayley's voice, we had the idea to use her for the track … I kind of think it's more sexy and interesting with her singing it."
  • Zedd told MTV News that Williams' soulful vocals fitted well as he has a lot in common with Paramore's rock sound. "Although my music is electronic, it has a lot of influences from my past, which is all sorts of genres; I've been in a rock-metal band for a longtime, and I still feel like, personally, I have a lot of influence from that," he said. "My classical influence, you can find spots here and there. I think we have a similar background, musically, and maybe that's why it fits so well ... I feel like a lot of other genres are in my music even though they're not in the spotlight."
  • Williams wrote the lyrics about a couple breaking up but staying together for one more night of passion. She finished them in a Paris hotel room, the day before she recorded her vocals. "I was actually getting into the shower and it just happened," she explained to Radio.com. "The words just came to me and I got out immediately and wrote everything down."
  • Williams first heard the track while Paramore were playing a run of European festival dates and was instantly drawn to the sentiments Zedd expressed. "I was like, 'This song is ridiculous, I love it.' So I said 'Let me get in there and see if I can write any words that I would want to sing,'" she told MTV News. "The song is about two people that know they're not really cut out for each other, but there's a fire there ... so I wrote about being a fire and the other person being gasoline - [the lyric] says 'Come pour yourself all over me' - because I wanted to go deeper into that tragedy of knowing this isn't right, but you don't care because it's just one more night."
  • The song's music video was directed by Daniel "Cloud" Campos, who made Paramore's "Now" clip earlier in 2013. "I love Cloud," Williams told MTV News. "He's easy to work with and he's excited to work on videos, and that passion and energy is really important. You draw off it and feed off it. You get a lot of emotion. There's a few cool tricks in this video, like there are scenes where I'm singing, and Cloud is holding a light bulb up to the lens, and it makes this really crazy effect, but it's just a light bulb; and I love that. It's not about spending a bazillion dollars on some fancy trick, it's about being creative."
  • A delay in releasing the song in the UK led to a cover by DJ Stay The Night. His spoiler version peaked at #24 on the British singles chart as fans waited for the real thing.

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