Zadanie 3.

Dan: Adele and I met at Harmony Studio soon after Rick Rubin had called us both and hinted we should work together. Rick’s opinion carries a lot of weight in our world. I liked his initiative because I hoped Adele could be persuaded to sing a duet with X-Factor participants, so I agreed to meet her.

Interviewer: Could you tell us what it was like writing a song with Adele?

Dan: Adele came to the session with lyrics and melody for the first half of the verse at least. It was a song about her heartbreak, a very personal one. We went to the room where the piano was. There Adele showed me the idea for the verse and started playing the guitar but when I switched to the piano, she lit up. “That’s way more inspiring!” she said.

Interviewer: And were there any lines that you argued about?

Dan: Not really. We didn’t have any arguments or tussles. Adele knew exactly what she wanted to say but there were some lines where she took my advice and agreed to rephrase them a bit. But my role was composing the music. Once we’d decided on the melody, she very quickly came up with that amazing line, “I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited.” Once you have a line that great, the rest of the section is easy to finish.

Interviewer: So everything was running rather smoothly...

Dan: Well, by the end of the first day, the demo was sounding lovely but it was only half-written, there were no words for the second verse. Adele couldn’t stay late because she had a meeting in Malibu. Next morning she came back to finish the demo and she said she had played it for her manager and her mum. It irritated me because I don’t like people to hear works-in-progress. But she said her manager loved it and her mum cried. And when we released the song, I would hear reports from other people who would tell me that it made them cry too. It’s kind of strange, it seems like a very common response to the recording. And all this even though the record company has kept it small, no choirs or strings, just as we wanted - Adele’s voice and the piano.

Interviewer: And the last question. Did you have a feeling that the song would be a hit when you were writing it?

Dan: Once we started recording, I was very much concentrated on making sure we got a killer vocal. I felt this was a special recording. Adele sounded so great coming back out of the speakers! I was determined to make her sound natural, vulnerable and devastated. On the second day, Adele’s voice had a rougher, more ragged edge. I suggested we go back and record the last chorus again so it would sound more emotional. We had a few goes at it but when we finished it, it was heartbreaking.

Interviewer: Thank you, Dan.