Lewis Capaldi’s secret songwriting weapon is his ex-girlfriend: “There’s a very nice dynamic”
Alexandra GavilletLewis Capaldi‘s debut album, Divinely Inspired to a Hellish Extent, topped the charts for weeks in his native U.K., and here in the U.S., it’s spun off the top-five hit “Someone You Loved.” Lewis says when he was putting together the album, he got help from an unlikely source: the ex-girlfriend who inspired most of the songs.
“We’re friends now, very good friends, and I think she’s great,” Lewis tells ABC Audio. “During the course of this album, I was sending her the songs. I’d be like, “What do you think of this [one]? What do you think of this [one]?’ Because if you go out with someone for almost two years, they’re going to tell you if they think something’s terrible!”
“Even now, if I’m really stuck on whether or not I think a song’s good, I will send it to my ex-girlfriend and be like, ‘Would you like this song? What do you think of it? Do you think it’s bad?’” he laughs. “And I think there’s a very nice dynamic.”
But ironically, it’s the one song that isn’t about his ex — “Someone You Loved” — that’s become his big breakthrough hit. But Lewis still asked her for her opinion on it.
“She loves it!” he reveals. “Yeah, she thought it was a really good song.”
But, he laughs, “I’ve sent her so many at this point, she’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s fine.’ That kind of, like, excitement has [gone away].”
Lewis is about to kick off a headlining tour in Europe and the U.K. On Tuesday in London, “Someone You Loved” was named Best Track at the Q Awards, handed out by the respected British music magazine, Q.
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