Yola - Symphony

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.

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This episode has some explicit and adult language.

Yola is a singer, songwriter, and actress.

She released her solo debut album in 2019, which was nominated for four Grammys, including Best New Artist and Best Americana album, and Rolling Stone named it one of the best country albums of the year.

But the thing is, Yola's music career wasn't new,

and her background wasn't in country music.

She's from Bristol in the UK.

And starting back in the early 2000s, she was a vocalist recording tracks for DJs and electronic music producers.

I cut my teeth on a little-known scene called the Broken Beat Scene in West London, being like a front woman for hire.

And I got hired by a group called Bugs in the Attic.

It had a lot of jazz in it, had a lot of funk in it.

It had a dancey element to it.

And that was like a big part of what built me.

And so in January 2025, YOA put out an EP called My Way.

And as you'll hear her explain in this episode, a lot of her new music is motivated by wanting to assert her identity beyond the Americana and country music boundaries.

In addition to her music, she's also acting.

She played Sister Rosetta Tharp in the 2022 film Elvis, and she starred on Broadway in the musical Hadestown.

For this episode, I talked to Yola about her song Symphony, along with co-writer and co-producer Sean Douglas.

Coming up, Yola and Sean trace the journey of the song Symphony, and along with it, Yola traces her own journey too.

When I first landed here, when I moved from the UK to the US,

I'd lost my mother and I was kind of communing with the music that me and my mother bonded over, which was a lot of Shania twain to be honest, and some Dolly and some other things.

But and so I kind of went into that space with the will to commune with her a little bit musically.

But then once I was done with that, it dawned on me that like people didn't seem to exercise a whole lot of curiosity as to how the hell I got here.

And it's, oh, because you're centering the things that we need you to center, which is that you're holding legendary white artists aloft.

You're centering whiteness, which society wants generally.

I was like, that's not my mission in life.

I'm allowed to be a fan without decapitating my entire personality.

But my story is

going to be different because I'm from a different continent and my parents are from Barbados and Ghana and just being first generation and being Brit, all of that makes my story.

And so when I was writing this song,

just before I was writing this song, I was dating

and I think I needed to move cities to date.

I was still living in Nashville and I was flying to New York today.

Yeah, I spent like a summer staying at my friend's house and we went to these cool little hip-hop 50 events that were going on around the city.

And I just felt like everywhere I went, I was having a different permutation of blackness that was like not related to the other in any way.

And so like, I felt like I was just in this place where I was a living example of non-monolithic blackness.

And that was really feeding to me.

And that, as a result, the likelihood of me finding my person was going to be there.

And so I then made a mission to spend some time in New York and be dating more seriously.

That's what this era has been:

me realizing that if I don't tell my story now,

then my narrative will be co-opted by people who love the mammy paradigm, the plus-size dark-skinned black woman in in service who joyfully and willfully shucks her own agency and that is not remotely in my personality type.

And that didn't just manifest in the creative space.

It was in a lot of spaces where I was the assumed fat friend.

People didn't understand that their fat phobia feeds into the nature of their anti-blackness.

And so specifically with the song Symphony, that's a really kind of like I'm being loved on song in full recognition that people my hue and my build are not the center of rom-coms habitually.

And so there's an element of resistance in writing a reality where you're being aggressively loved on.

I would start these groups.

I call them starter groups.

And the idea of forming them was exclusively because I play a little guitar, but the things that I can imagine are way beyond

what I can play on a gazillion instrument.

And I need to find someone to help me translate what's in my head.

And so, the starter team was like a way of making sure that we could get into my brain and figure out what the hell's going on in there.

I would take what I call a nugget, and it's a voice note.

That's a nugget.

I was going, Hopa, choo-hoo, hop, put-choo-ho,

tut-di-ba-ni-ho-hai,

I'm not even doing all the words yet.

I'm just doing vowels.

So I took it to this duo called The Privilege, Christopher and Christian, to do a pre-demo.

And we're not trying to finish it.

We're just trying to get the spirit.

Christopher and Christian are twins and they're great.

They were coming through Nashville and we found this studio downtown, rented this space.

And so one hopped on the drum,

other one hopped on bass and they just started letting down that bass line that boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And I was like, okay, so we're already in.

So you have this hook and okay, this is an idea for a song.

What is this song about?

Did you already know?

Yeah, I did.

That hook, that I'll put you onto this body of mine is very kind of like presumptive.

It's very like, congratulations, you've won the competition of access to

these titties.

And like,

it's very like, congratulations, you've won the competition.

You get to smash this bitch.

It's very,

it's very like that, you know.

In this moment, I talk a lot in production terms.

I'll be like, oh, I really visualize a kind of Parliament Funkatelic style, stacked focal.

And the idea is to try and extricate the spirit to make sure that we don't miss anything.

We don't want to need to do any more frills outside of that.

But if we need to do everything that is necessary to get the spirit right.

I purposefully leave space for perspective because I want to collaborate.

I love it.

It's my favorite part.

And then that's when I show it to Sean and Zach.

My name's Sean Douglas, and I work with a great writer-producer, Zach Skelton, very often.

And he and I were both big fans of the stuff Yolag put out out and didn't know where she was musically at the time, but just had a hang.

And she's obviously like insanely talented.

And like, Yola brought in these seeds of songs.

And a lot of them bore this sort of frustration or complications of old relationships.

And this one really stood out because it was really visceral and it felt overtly in your body and felt overtly positive.

I do remember it was a few days in, must have been a few days into us working together because I remember being much more comfortable with the idea that, like, Zach and I heard this thing, this amazing verse, and this bass line that is like super catchy in and of itself.

It was interesting to sort of like take a couple of days and sort of figure out what exactly you wanted to do because it wasn't anything you had done before.

No, especially with a celebration song like this, you have to explain the rest of it.

Like, what are you even you're going to put someone onto your body?

Like, what?

That's not even a thing people say.

And so you have to, you have to kind of deconstruct why is this important?

Because, you know, people don't center, you know, the fat black femme in a romantic guise, in a way that's highly celebratory and highly sex positive and highly valued.

And that's what this song is.

And it's not very often that I meet people who can get out of the way of their own agenda for long enough to hear what's in my head, especially people of stature writing-wise.

And so that's something that is mad rare.

and I'm mad grateful to Sean for like it's a good ass time yeah you me and Zach we lucked out with the kind of that that mind meld yeah the mind meld we started working on it at Zach Skelton's studio over here in West Hollywood she came to us with the bass line and that that melody

Sometimes when there's material that's been started before, you know, you'll pull up stems and start writing off

the elements that were already there.

To make it kind of easier to work on, Zach pulled the stems into his session.

And then Zach added this break beat.

One of my favorite parts, one of the things I love in this song is this guy.

Oh, yeah.

That Zach.

Yeah, that little vocal sample is one of the first things Zach added to the little stems once he pulled them in.

If you grow up on like hip-hop things and DJ Premiere beats and things like that, you just want a cool vocal sample.

It just gives the whole thing some muscle.

So then we were kind of looping that verse and kind of singing the verse part over that

you're with me

so you're in the groove and then riding this bass line and you sort of build up all this tension you're not going anywhere harmonically different you know you're sitting in that pocket which feels really good.

I was on the roads,

and we can just play in that same tempo.

So once you do that for, you know, 16 bars, you're going to want to stretch and go to this, you know, bigger sort of chordal moment.

I started playing that progression.

I was like, we can get a little poppier here.

And she was super down for that.

I felt like when you started playing those chords, I started hearing a reacting melody.

And we just gove in and got this big soul chorus out of it.

My conversation with Yola and Sean Douglas continues after this.

I'm pretty active and I eat pretty well, so I've been operating under the idea that I'm basically healthy.

But thanks to Function Health, whose sponsor song Exploder, I found out that actually a handful of biomarkers around my heart health are below what's considered normal.

And with my family history and genetics, I really have to watch out for that.

And I wouldn't have known about this if it weren't for function, which is a health platform that gives you access and insights into all kinds of information about what's really happening inside your own body.

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So the three of you made this demo in Zach's studio.

Did you have a plan for what you were going to do with it after that?

Yeah.

We then go into Gold Dickism, record a bunch of stuff.

And it was very much much a testing situation of like, do I need to do a live session?

I'm going to have to do one to find out whether that's what I want to do.

Because this is my first time since being in the country that I've had the opportunity to do it.

In Goldigger Studio, we got all the live guys playing for a couple of days, get live takes, and it was just so fun to do because it's just not the norm for me.

A drummer that I really rate and who is just an absolute beast, Howard Artis.

We toured together for years.

Really stunning player.

I was like, he's 100% the drummer.

So Divinity Rocks, bass player, might know her from, I don't know, Beyonce.

I was like, I want her fingers doing the magic on this particular bass line.

Yeah, and she did an amazing job of,

you know, that Ben.

It's so so specific in the demo that to get the same feel for the live recording was kind of, I didn't think we would get it.

I thought we'd honestly go back to the other one, but she crushed.

She crushed.

So that was like the foundation of what the beginning of like the live session idea is that I was really close to some real monsters, some real badasses.

Who's singing there?

Oh my goodness gracious.

If you speak to anyone that's ever played in a live band of mine, they'll tell you I've got a problem with putting mics in front of everyone's faces.

I'm like, everyone's singing.

I love a group vocal.

Sing like the symphony.

Sing like the symphony.

This is when I get into my vocal biomechanics lecturing bag.

So specifically vocally, I asked for a mezzo-soprano vocal with a lot of low formant in the voice.

And then I asked for a soprano singer with a lot of soft palette resonation.

And when the backing vocalists were recording their parts, were you in the room with them?

Were you singing along with them?

Or were you in the control room?

I was in the control room pointing and waving.

And that was my time to run the session.

When vocals come in, then I'm producer.

And then when guitars or keys come in then sean's producer when another instrument comes in zach's producer but that was a moment where they looked at me went this is literally what you lectured do it just take your time just take your time

i will not break your heart your heart your heart oh now

Yola got hyper specific with them about intonation and sort of phrasing of it.

And it's amazing how much that changes the way it comes through.

And like singing that is like a diaphragm workout.

When we were tracking the BGVs, remember, and I was like in front of the glass with like my gut fully out, okay?

Like, belly button on show situation.

And I'm literally going, if I don't see diaphragmatic hits, you're not sitting this right.

I need to see guts move.

Just take your time, just take your time.

I will not break it.

You can't really do the vocal if you're not doing the big hits.

Your heart go down,

chills up my spine,

The hook is really tight, like staccato and syncopated.

It needed something that was the antithesis of that.

And so we needed a big ta-da.

I felt like once we got to the horn stacks, the whole song song feels just physical.

Once you got there, you start to go, oh yeah, this is like a record.

When I used to be on tour, kind of in my bugling attic era, we were doing this festival in Australia called Good Vibrations Festival.

And we were opening for James Brown, no less.

And I'd see him for about a month.

We'd all sit together.

And I feel like the outro of Symphony, you'll hear me go,

then I'd go into your love, your love giving, your love, your love, your love, your love, your love, your love, love, your love, your love, your love.

Give me your love, your love, your love, your love, your love, your love, your love, your love, your love, your love.

That wouldn't be out of place on a house tune

because that was my other bread and butter.

I was the house vocal for DJ producers on lots and lots of house tunes.

And all of that history, this song is piecing together sonically all the different parts of my life like vocally they are snapshots right the way through i remember we were in goldigger studio and she would you know knock out her leads in like three takes

Which for me and Zach working in more pop-leaning stuff is like a rarity, but such a luxury.

And she just crushes it and you go, oh, that's awesome.

The engineers and me and Zach were just kind of like looking through the glass into the booth and just kind of jaws on the floor a moment.

It was crazy.

Play my heart's glass with balls in your hands.

And I sing like a symphony.

I love collaborating.

I love being part of a team.

And so that's what led me to

these songs of celebration and

just a little bit of introspection on my situation.

I feel like this song really encapsulates the joy of mind-melds.

And it's kind of like about finding my partner Henry here and a mind-meld of a different kind.

And so, yeah, the kind of lyrics of this song are very like luxuriating in this kind of smugness of finding someone.

But I wrote it before I met him.

I wrote it to manifest him.

And then he turned up and it was exactly this song.

And that was it.

And now, here's Symphony by Yola in its entirety.

I'll put you on,

I'll put you on

to this body of mine,

of mine, of mine.

Oh my,

what you give up, what you give up,

you will get back this time,

this time, this time.

Oh my,

oh, how you make me sing.

Oh, the joyful revelation that you bring.

There's nothing better than this

just being in the warmth of your friend wing.

Where we go when we can't come back.

Feel the tempo

just like that.

Play my heartstrings with both of your hands.

And I'll sing my symphony.

Shake my cassymphony for you.

Just take your time, just take your time.

I will not break your heart,

your heart, your heart.

Oh, warm, chills up my spine, chills up my spine.

You make the music start

and start

and start.

Oh,

you make me scream.

Yeah, your breath from limit is your only thing.

Sing

the melody

of the gentleman limit, whispered in my ear.

And the way to go when he can't come back.

Feel the temple

just like that.

Play my heartstrings with both of your hands.

And I'll sing like a symphony, I'll sing like a symphony.

Give me, give me, give me, give me, give me your love, your love, give me your love, your love, give me your love, your love, your love, your love.

When we

can't come back,

Feel the temple

just like that.

You're my mouth

with only our hands.

And I'll sing like a symphony.

Sing there is a symphony for me.

Visit songexploder.net/slash yola to learn more and to find links to buy or stream this this song.

This episode was produced by me, along with Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, and Mary Dolan, with production assistance from Tiger Biscuit.

Special thanks to Christian and Christopher Underwood from the privilege for their help.

The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts.

You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm.

If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter.

You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website.

You can also follow me on Instagram, and you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net/slash shirt.

I'm Rishike Shirwei.

Thanks for listening.

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This episode is is brought to you by the new film Splitsville.

It's a comedy about relationships and the messiness that comes with them, and it stars Dakota Johnson and Adria Arhona.

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Splitsville is already playing now in select theaters, and it'll be playing everywhere on September 5th.