Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today Little Beirut frontman Hamilton Sims tells us about "Nadia" from their new album "Fear of Heaven". We now turn it over to Hamilton for the story: This song was one of the first of the demos for the new record to stand out to me. With our band, we typically start with the music. Edwin usually brings in a great riff or progression to chew on, and then after hashing it out dozens of ways, we end up with something for me to sing/write over. I was really stuck on the crescendo in the chorus with that cool little arpeggio. (da da DA da da, da da DA da da). I knew if we had a good question/answer thing going with that arpeggio, that we had something. So the name Nadia kept coming out and it seemed like it worked. Except that I knew no one named Nadia. And I'd never written a song with a girl's name as the title. It's tricky because there's some definite cheese potential (see: "Amanda" by Boston). And if the girl's name is not your girl's name, and said girl has to hear it live, and often, there could be trouble.
Luckily I had just read some sports article naming the top 10 athletes of all time, and above Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, etc, was Nadia Comaneci. A 14 year old girl who scored a perfect 10 not once, but seven times in a row in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Now I didn't immediately say, "OH! I've always wanted to write a song about Nadia Comaneci! Killer!", but when I read her story I knew it would work; especially the part about her cracking under the pressure, attempting suicide and the Romanian government watching her every move. I've always felt so sorry for child stars that are expected to perform like gods and deal with the pressures of fame. I mean, can you name any success stories? Ron Howard's the only one, right?
So it turns out she defected to America in1989 with some shifty dude and left a suicide note for her family in the middle of the night. She had no money, no reputation. nobody close with her. Just broke out with nothing. I can't imagine any other world famous athlete, hero to millions, ever going through that kind of trauma and surviving. Then, if you skip ahead when she gets her s*** together, she hooks up with a guy from Oklahoma she met in competition 20 years before and opens up a gym with him. Maybe she got what she really wanted. I guess I just wanted the song to tell what it took to get there.
So when then coda, says, 'Offer your heart, offer your daily bread, offer your blood, offer your bed", I'm just trying to show that she gave up everything important. Not many people can do that.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album
- right here!
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