All is Love by Curt Smith
Play All is Love – Curt Smith.mp3
(locally archived) (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License) (this track from Amazon.com, at no cost)
Update 3-7-10: It is now $0.89 on Amazon. I have “purchased” it anyway because, wow, this track keeps resonating in me! If you love this track, buy it.
I wrote on Curt Smith’s website (of Tears for Fears fame)
Curt, Thank you so very much for this song.
I found All is Love when browsing around for for Zoë Keating’s music. I’ve played it 50 times in the last week on your website. It hits me at a very deep level and I don’t know why. Every time the song ends, I get this slow lost feeling, as if I had been on my way to somewhere beautiful and then, despite trying to keep it in my memory, I slowly forget how to get there. So I find the page and hit play again. That’s all I can do. I don’t know what you’ve stirred in me but it’s worthwhile to explore.
Thank you for the message in this song. I look forward to the album release.
Click here to listen to “All Is Love (featuring Zoë Keating),” Curt’s first new solo material in nearly two years. It will be released on January 24. 2010.
Smith is releasing “All is Love” via his KOOK Media label as a standalone single, which will be available in digital format from AmazonMP3, iTunes, CD Baby, thesixtyone and other online retailers.
Smith met guest artist Zoë Keating online. “I was looking for a cellist to play on the track and heard about Zoë through Twitter. I watched a few of her performances on YouTube and thought she was fantastic and innovative.” He sent her the in-progress tracks, and a month or so later she hand-delivered her cello parts to a Tears For Fears concert outside of San Francisco. The two will perform in concert, as a double bill, on March 23 at renowned L.A. venue Largo at The Coronet.
“All Is Love,” began life as a demo track for a television pilot theme song (the original version, called “Halfway Home,” streams on Smith’s website). While the pilot didn’t get picked up, Smith liked the musical idea he’d begun, and reworked it with longtime collaborator Charlton Pettus. In a departure from his usual lyrical themes of longing and loss, All Is Love’s anthemic chorus (“When every mother’s loving every son / When all is love, there’ll be love for everyone”) looks forward with hope to a time of peace and calm. “I was inspired by the 2008 U.S.presidential election” says Smith “The verses are about the negativity of all the advertising, whilst the chorus invokes the inspiration I felt about positive change.”
Like Smith’s previous solo effort “Halfway, pleased,” he’s releasing “All Is Love” under a Creative Commons license. The license Smith uses allows others to freely share, perform, and remix his work,so long as the uses are non-commercial, Smith is credited, and any derivative works carry the same license. “I’m a big fan of Creative Commons,” Smith says.”It’s a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned. It affords you the opportunity to set the ground rules of how people can use your music upfront.”
Background vocalists on “All Is Love” include singer-songwriters Michael Wainwright (who opened for Tears for Fears on its 2009 U.S. tour) and Jason Joseph, as well as Pettus’ daughter Georgica. Charlton Pettus and Smith share writing and production credits.
Smith plans to play several Los Angeles-area solo gigs in 2010, working around a busy schedule of Tears for Fears concert tours taking place in Australia, New Zealand, southeast Asia and the U.S. EastCoast. He’ll continue to release new tracks as he completes them, with the possibility of compiling them into an album when he’s got enough material.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Lyrics to “all is love (featuring zoë keating)”
Written by Curt Smith and Charlton Pettus
Look what you’ve done
You’ve blown it all
On vanity and sympathy
See how you run
A pot of gold
And a bleeding heart to go with itChorus:
When all is love
And the hurt is gone
We’ll all reach out
To touch someone
When every mother’s
Loving every son
When all is love
There’ll be love for everyoneLook what you’ve lost
Innocence and faith
And save yourself at any cost
Here’s what you’ll find
When the bottom drops outChorus
Close your eyes and it’s gone
Don’t look down till it’s over
Hold on tight, everyone
We’re halfway homeChorus (repeats)
When all is love
When all is love
There’ll be love for everyone
When all is love
When all is love
There’ll be loveLook what you’ve done