You're listening to Song Explorer, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishike Shirway. Siel is a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter from England. His song, Kiss from a Rose, was first released in 1994 on his second album.
It was a huge hit thanks in part to being featured in the movie Batman Forever. It landed on the top 10 charts in multiple countries and eventually went quadruple platinum in the US, and at the 1996 Grammys it won Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Mail Pop, Local Performance. But Kiss from a Rose becoming a hit wasn't a four-gone conclusion. Siel almost didn't record it, and when it was first released it didn't make much of a splash.
But for this episode, the 250th episode of Song Explorer, Siel and his longtime collaborator, producer Trevor Horn, told me the story of what it took to bring Kiss from a Rose to life. My name is Siel and I'm a recording artist. I wrote Kiss from a Rose around, it would have been 86, 87. I was living in a squat, I didn't have any money and I was just basically getting my act together trying to figure out who I was musically.
And Kiss from a Rose came out of that period when you sort of do things not for any other purpose than because that's what's coming out of you. I had no experience in the studio, in a proper recording studio at that point, and so I didn't know the rules. And it started out as a bit of an experiment because I just got this piece of recording apparatus called a four-track. And I was trying to figure out how to use it.
I couldn't play an instrument at the time, but I tried to imagine what an orchestra would do. And I came up with these parts, and so I was essentially trying to mimic a flute, pizzicato, violins, and a few other instruments, essentially an orchestra. And so I ended up recording about 16 or 17 tracks of vocals, trying to figure out how to work this machine, and then everything was impulsive and instinctive. And at the end of the day doing it, I had this thing called Kiss from a Rose.
But I remember kind of listening to the tape and I kind of tossed the tape to one side because I wasn't particularly proud of it. Later on, we'd had some success with a song called Killer. That was quite popular. Killer is a song by the English DJ, Adevsky, that featured Seal on Guest Vocals.
It came out in 1990 and was a number one hit in the UK. And so I'd been to see a few different record companies. I remember walking into ZTT records, and as I was walking through the corridors, I was looking at all of the plaques on the wall, and there were bands like Propaganda, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Greystone Slabed to the Rhythm. And I remember looking at all of these records and going, oh, I like that record.
Oh, yeah, I really like that record. Oh, and it was only then that I made the connection that Trevor Horn had produced all of these. My name is Trevor Horn and I'm an old record producer. My late wife was Jill Sinclair.
At the time, Jill and I were kind of like a team. Jill was my wife, but she was also my manager. And we started a record label together, which was ZTT. Before I actually met Seal, she said, I've found him.
I've found what I've been looking for. I remember the first meeting it very clearly, as if it were yesterday. Jill looked at me and she said, I'll never forget that she said, right, young man, let me tell you why this is your home. And I walked out of there and I remember telling my manager at the time that that's where I wanted to be.
And so Trevor and I eventually got together and my life changed. I remember this friend of mine would always tell, I said, you know, I've got this Rose song, you should get him to play it to you. And Trevor would keep saying to me, what's this song that Paul keeps going on about this Rose song? I'd be, ah, don't I, you know, and I just passed it off as being nothing.
You said it was sort of Elizabethan. Yeah, that was it. And I remember being quite intrigued, but we never got around to it on the first record. And then we got the set record.
I remember saying, yeah, what about that Elizabethan thing? And what did you think when he foreshowed it to you? I loved it. You're kidding.
I thought it's so rare you hear something that's in three, four, you know, six, eight, whichever time signature I loved it. Yeah, that I mean, what's not to love about that. We record it at Sam's studio, Sam West in London. I didn't quite know how to do the song, but then I thought probably the best thing is keep it straight rather than trying to get clever with any techno stuff on it.
We had a seven piece band, Chris Blue's played guitar, Jamie Moho who played keyboards, Michael Dampfiddler also played keyboards initially. He had Harvey Mason on drums, an English guy on bass called Charlie Drayton. It has these amazing dynamic bits in it. The band would get loud and then stop.
You know, that's one of the things you get from playing it to the live and feeling it. I liked singing with the band, but I really liked the focus sessions that Trevor and I used to have in the studio because that's where I learned my trades, really. At one point, I used to live literally across the road in Trevor's basement flats, and I would walk into the studio at sometimes three o'clock in the morning, sometimes one o'clock in the afternoon at all these different times. And there was always a mic ready, there was always a setup ready, there was always an engineer available whether Trevor was there or not, because Trevor once told me, look, everything else I can control and I can make it work in whether it's orchestras, whether it's other musicians, the one thing I can't control is your vocal.
But did you know that when it snows, my eyes become a lot of the line that you shine can't be seen? Sometimes you were with friends, very nice friends, and I would say to you, hey, you say, well, why don't you do a vocal? And I'd sing better. Trevor's being tactful, I'd generally walk in with like some gorgeous lady and Trevor understood, you know, if I had an audience to perform in front of, I sang differently.
So he encouraged me to get the vocal, because it's a tricky song, kiss for a word, it's not for the faint at heart. In the verses, it's low and exposed, and it's harder to sing the low parts when you're nervous than it is the high parts. I don't recollect you, you have any problems singing it, but we put in little 3-8 bar to give you a breath after one line. Because it used to go, It used to go like that, but then, Trevor put in a little turnaround that would give me time to catch my breath.
That little thing is so important to the overall performance. Trevor used to stress the importance of a middle eight. You started going, I've been kissed for a rose. What I suggest, you can make that a middle eight, we take it down the tone, and then we'll go back up again for the end of the song and it worked great.
Trevor was always big on orchestras. Yeah, I like orchestras. Betty Cook, who's a really great writer, and she came in and we were working on Kissing a Rose. She's a great keyboard player and she went, God, I love this song.
Then she left and then she came running back five minutes late and said, I've got an idea for a string part on this. Can I show you what it is? I had a keyboard there and she was playing midi strings and I just recorded the midi strings into a computer. Then we got the strings.
I think it was only 30 strings. It's not like a 60 piece orchestra, but they're all the best players. When you have an orchestra that can do that, move organically. God, that is a very, very unique type of luxury for a singer.
Seals always like French horn. It's a beautiful instrument. Obo is a beautiful instrument too. Trevor used to get me to sing each part, the harmonies, eight times.
In those days, we didn't, there was no auto tune. Trevor got me to sing that harmony in terms of tightness and pitch. He would get me to sing it eight times until I got one. That was possible.
He got great now, I've been kissed from a rose on the grid. Ooh, the stranger feels the air. You don't meet many people who can knock off harmonies, who've got two octaves and can sing soft and hard and can remember how they've raised something. It does take a certain talent to do it and Seals is really good at it.
The payoff is when you come into the studio and you split them left and right and you put them all up together and you just hear this beautiful lush sound. The Kiss from a Rose was the fourth single released from the second album. It didn't easily slot into any genre. It went in the charts around 60 dropped to 80 something the next week and it was out.
DJ's barely played it. No one really understood it, I guess, and no one heard it. But what happened was Seals started to be managed by a guy called Bob Cavallo and Bob was really good friends with Joe Schumacher who had just directed the Backman movie. Joe Schumacher, God bless him.
It didn't fit in the love scene that he was trying to put the song in, but he loved the song so much he just stuck it on the end credits. And so when people went to go and see the movie, the last thing they heard when they were leaving the theater was, and then Joel got me down to the studio lot where they shot a lot of the movie and stuck me in front of the bat light and he intercut it with scenes from the movie. And so once we got our foot in the door with this juggernaut of a movie and this great video on MTV, then it had the legs, then it had the staying power. That was what was so funny about it in the end because in the end when we got Grammy for Single of a Year, it had been played on every kind of station.
It was always a great record. The only difference is that people got to hear it. There's a lot of luck involved. One could argue that you create that luck, but whatever.
Nonetheless, you do need that windfall, you do need that bit of like a Joel Schumacher and Bob Cavallo had the foresight to find a way to get that song heard. I was broke, I was struggling to be heard, but then when I met Trevor, I found the one guy who not only heard me but knew exactly what to do with my voice. I can't emphasize enough the importance of finding that one person who sees you and hears you and who gets you. I think it's a good song, but I think it's a great record and that's not to do with me, that's to do with Trevor and the people that put that record together.
As an artist and producer, if you're lucky, you get one life-defining song in your career. If you're lucky, you get one and Kiss from a Rose's Mine. And now here's Kiss from a Rose by Seal in its entirety. It's like a baby Joel's on the Bay.
Who can build space? For more, visit SongExploder.net. You'll find links to buy or stream Kiss from a Rose. And you can watch the music video that features Seal singing in front of the Vat signal.
This episode of SongExploder was made by me, Craig Ile, Kathleen Smith, and Mary Dolan. The episode artwork is by Carlos Laramah and I made the show's theme music and logo. SongExploder is a proud member of Radio Topia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at RadioTopia.fm.
You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Herway and you can follow the show at SongExploder. You can also get a SongExploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi K. Sherway.
Thanks for listening. RadioTopia. You've probably heard me say at the end of every episode that SongExploder is a proud member of Radio Topia, a network of independent, artist-owned, listener-supported podcasts. Well, this is the time where the listener-supported part comes in.
We're trying to reach 2,024 donors before the year 2024 ends and I really hope you'll be one of them. The show takes a lot of work to make but that work is made possible thanks to monthly donations from listeners like you. If SongExploder has meant anything to you, if you feel like you've learned something about a song that you've loved or maybe you've learned something about creativity that you've been able to apply to your own practice or maybe just heard something from somebody's story that's inspired you, I hope you'll consider donating today at RadioTopia.fm slash donate. That's RadioTopia.fm slash donate.
Every gift makes a difference, no matter how small. A dollar a month or five dollars a month, whatever you feel like you can contribute to keep shows like this going will be very appreciated. In fact, all the people who produce RadioTopia podcasts have put together a list of all of our favorite things and everyone who donates will get a link to the list as a token of our thanks, a bunch of great recommendations. So again, it's RadioTopia.fm slash donate.
Thank you so much.