Playground

Album: Still Come The Night (2022)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Although many of the songs on Still Come The Night explore the grief she endured after a miscarriage, Alison Sudol didn't want to make a depressing album "that would pull you into a murky space." To contrast the heartache songs like the title track, she also wrote tunes like the joyful "Playground," which was inspired by her own love story.

    "'Playground' reminded me of falling in love with my partner and wanting to move my body and celebrate that and not forget that, even though we'd gone through something so painful together," she explained in a 2022 Songfacts interview. "It's a really light song."
  • Sudol also told Songfacts that she initially struggled with the vocals and an experiment in the studio led to surprising results. "The vocals are really ropey," she said. "I wrote the song pretty much as we were coming up with the whole thing. The lyrics came as well. I listened to the music as we were getting ready to leave the studio, and the vocals sounded so annoying. I thought I was going to hate the song listening back. So just to temporarily do it, I said, 'I'm going to sing down two things right on top of each other and I'm gonna sing them like shit, but playfully.' And instead of trying to sing it, it sounded like it needed to be talked. And we kept them. And it's amazing what you can cover up when you put new vocals on top of each other, because they are ropey."
  • Sudol, who wrote this with the London-based producer Chris Hyson, explained how the song came together with her backing band (Welsh brothers Alex and Lloyd Haines on guitar and drums, with Alex Killpatrick as sound engineer) in the studio: "We wanted to make something that we could dance to so we were trying out grooves and testing them out to see what would make us move. We added the guitar counter melodies through a Leslie Cab at Livingstone Studios in London a few months later which brought another layer of color and texture that the song was calling for. In that same session we added percussion which we all played in the room together, some of us stopping and starting at different times in the song, following the arrangement."
  • This is the first album Sudol released under her own name. She previously released music under the stage name A Fine Frenzy, including the popular track "Almost Lover."
  • This was the album's third single, following "Peaches" and "Meteor Shower."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Cheerleaders In Music Videos

Cheerleaders In Music VideosSong Writing

It started with a bouncy MTV classic. Nirvana and MCR made them scary, then Gwen, Avril and Madonna put on the pom poms.

Paul Williams

Paul WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."

Did They Really Sing In That Movie?

Did They Really Sing In That Movie?Fact or Fiction

Bradley Cooper, Michael J. Fox, Rami Malek, Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow and George Clooney: Which actors really sang in their movies?

Motley Crue

Motley CrueFact or Fiction

Was Dr. Feelgood a dentist? Did the "Crüecifixion" really happen?

Mick Jones of Foreigner

Mick Jones of ForeignerSongwriter Interviews

Foreigner's songwriter/guitarist tells the stories behind the songs "Juke Box Hero," "I Want To Know What Love Is," and many more.

Jon Foreman of Switchfoot

Jon Foreman of SwitchfootSongwriter Interviews

Switchfoot's frontman and main songwriter on what inspires the songs and how he got the freedom to say exactly what he means.