This week we have a look at Swings Both Ways’ eighth track, Snowblind. One of the six original tracks on the album, Snowblind was written by Robbie with his long-term writing partner Guy Chambers. Robbie was delighted to have a place where he could make use of some new original songs, but he was initially concerned that it wouldn’t cut the mustard next to his favourite selection of show-biz classics.
“I’ve got a stock pile of loads of tunes. It’s very difficult to get them finished, it’s very difficult to find a place for them. I was worried for a bit, but I think that these songs stand up next to these Standards, and that’s a pretty cool accomplishment.”
This deeply personal and introspective track was written about a time in his life when Robbie felt he was unable to commit to loving one person because of the whirlwind lifestyle he found himself leading, even though to fall in love was what he wanted most of all.
“It’s from a period in my life when I wanted to be in love, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do the monogamy thing that was expected of me, and I expected of me too. It caused a lot of relationships to end abruptly.”
This period of Robbie’s life is something that he can look back at now with the benefit of hindsight, and can begin to understand his actions to a certain extent, because of what was going on around him at the time.
“There was a certain pain attached to that, knowing I wanted to be in love, but also knowing that a twenty seven year old pop star going around the world, meeting girls does what a twenty seven year old pop star I think should do. So it was ‘Hey-ho pain, I’ll put it in a song and hop into the next bed’, but Snowblind is about that period and that pain.”
Snowblind is a track full of emotion, showing us a softer side of Swings Both Ways. With its delicate, sweeping orchestral arrangement and soaring chorus melody helping to evoke dreamy and romantic images reminiscent of the great Broadway musical love-scenes, Snowblind sees Robbie playing the leading man who is stricken, love-sick and looking back.
Swings Both Ways is out now; use the links below to get your copy.
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