so that's the cover which is beautiful which is a very different sand than the one on the cover of your first record it's inspired by I was in the Saatchi Gallery and I saw this Chuck Close image of this man black on my smoked a cigarette and I loved it so Roy yeah so I wanted it to be all untouched so to
get a goodbye song number one on the records that song we've kind of talked a little bit about where did it feature in there in there in the overall composition of the record I wrote it halfway through the writing process okay weird talking about this song now yeah it's crazy how much of some can change
if you if you bring it out and hear people singing it because it's now feels like the it just feels beautiful to me say at first now Jameer my reaction when he played that to me that song you did with Millay the first time the oh yeah man I love that song so much it's only
love song I've ever written huh yeah it's the only love song and I look back on that and I couldn't listen to that for a long time because I was with the guy the who it's about and it was this moment where I my feelings were getting a lot stronger right I remember just thinking to myself I can't say it until
he says it and now I look back and it's really sad and because I know I couldn't say it because I maybe I think deep down I knew that he wasn't gonna write you're protecting yourself yeah cuz he never did never did the whole time yeah but it's the this song when you listen to it I was in such a hopeful beautiful place
you know it's it's one of those sort of roads that a lot of people walk down it's the most one of most well trodden pars as a songwriter is to write about love it's something that everybody feels on a daily basis and you know something that you seem to be protecting yourself from writing about until you actually
feel that you can do it yeah with the real authenticity yeah I don't want to write about being in love nests you are unless I'm really in love with someone and they love me back and then who knows I always say that I'm never gonna write a happy song but I've never oh yeah happy love song that's really
sad because you probably maybe you haven't felt that no yeah I genuinely haven't I certainly forget sometimes that in order to you to get to that place I'm missing the nuance of this whole experience which is that you haven't had a chance to write that album yet no but I also my mum always says to
me that I'm it's not my time yet I'm 25 and I've only actually been in I didn't I didn't meet any gay people till I was 18 so I've only been kind of dating for five years mmm properly you know so I don't think it's my time yet I think when it comes to romance in love I'm very young you
work with Malay on that song Rance earnest yeah he's in a couple of tracks yes how was that amazing guy really magical person he came to Ireland with me and Jimmy as well to write and we write bitten I trained with him there hmm and he's and he's just so much fun with me and writers the time we spent
together outside of the studio is just as important as the time in the street and with Malay and with Pooh Bear mmm and Tyler Johnson I met all of them before the writing sessions I went to Nando's in Malay and I went to Carluccio's with Pooh Bear and we all had lunch and chatted and spoke
but before we got in the studio how many songs on this record did you make the time oh yes me and Jimmy together I think wrote seven to about 70 and then there's another 60 that I wrote without what I think so you have a hard drive maybe all of Jim well any of these 120 participants in twenty hundred thirty
songs so will any of them ever see the light of day no but remember this isn't all in one year this is in three years of writing because I I was writing during in the learning hour do you ever go back and listen to old demos or anything for inspiration you just let them go it's got a one last song mmm the
last song you were gonna write about the individual in question on the first record mm-hmm that's it I'm done yeah there was a moment towards the end towards the last three four months writing this album where I am I'd written so much about this guy that was in a relationship with I wasn't even
speak about many more I was so tired of it and the guy I wrote the first record about started to leak back into my mind and I didn't like it I've written enough about him I've thought enough about that situation so I I was with Jimmy and Tyler Johnson in Nashville remembers really angry that
morning I said to Jim Oz I'm angry today and it's really honest of him and he was I can fill you and we got in the studio and I was I were gonna write an angry song and it turned into that yeah so there's an angst in that song you listen to it I think it I was just sick of being in that headspace thinking about
this guy so I said that is the last thing I'm writing for him and it is midnight train mmm the making of that song is one of my favorites it was me Malayan Jimmy we're in Ireland we had a night out with the night before we were in this pub and we had a lock-in and we were drinking so much Guinness and we
woke up the next morning and I was just like I'm 100% not writing because I'm too hungover I can't think of anything worse than trying to dig deeper my song right now and we were all like Malay was lying planking basically on a sofa I remember when I walked through the studio then we all got up and we and he
started he played me love and happiness by Al Green mm-hmm and I'd never heard it and I was like whoa and then Jimmy got the drums Malay started playing on the guitar and I had a mic stand with a mic and the mic wasn't even plugged into anything I was pretending to be some sort of like pretending to be our green
yeah yeah and then it just came that song is ad-libbing all the LEDs are just add lipping when you mention if you hadn't done the work that day if you're just gonna go to McDonald's and went to sleep mad and you're the worst thing as well I sent that email with midnight train to
my team and never heard back from anyone so two weeks later I was in the office with my team and I was like well you didn't like midnight train did you and they were all like we haven't heard midnight train the email didn't even set in see and did you spin those two weeks just like yeah if I never mentioned it
yeah yeah god I never have got sent burning is a very important moment and you mentioned that before as being a very integral part of this record yeah a cornerstone of this record have stay with me was kind of the cornerstone of the last record yeah yeah this is yeah it's the
personal narrative ever written in my life you reach a limit I wasn't enough you yeah you reached Limbaugh's on but that that song to me is about Fame and that's about when I got when I got dumped I I got really sad and then when I get sad I think about everything else that makes me sad that was the only time
in my life I haven't been able to write music and I went to New York and my sister for her birthday the day after I got dumped and for six weeks straight I consumed a lot of alcohol yeah I was going to say you just parted hi and I was going out a lot and I was and I got back to London after this
holiday and I had all these writing sessions put in with people and I cancelled for about two three weeks oh really unprofessional of me well and really bad of me but I wasn't in the right headspace no in the studio I was really self-destructive and going out too much and getting with people and
giving myself away too easily and it was and I was just burning I and I got the point where my manager was like look I know I can sense you're going through something you need to get back in just try it just go in for one day and I remember just being like it's only 15 minutes away from this house yeah barmen
being hungover had been like I don't even want to go in the studio got up forced myself to go in walked into the arms of poober mm-hmm who in that situation he's just the best person I couldn't I think if I walked in with Jimmy at that point it wouldn't have worked because I was too close to me too
close and I loved him too much yes a person he's hit on because you're an honest guy I can imagine it it's almost smoking that was the big thing mm-hmm I smoking a lot of cigarettes that's what the lyric is I've been smoking 20 a day it's a really good song later on rebellion don't blame it on me
that's my favorite because that that sums up that whole feeling of being in your throat and it's kind of that song about it's about that sadness I started thinking about everything and it was the only time where I've questioned my job and whether I want to do this forever and where I've why what's it got to do
with the job because a guy dumped me because he didn't someone didn't want to be of me because of my life that's an excuse I think is too he just wasn't blessed my mom says he just wasn't that into you yeah but I still find it hard to sing that song for me that song is important
people need to know how delicate that is in London though the show there was a drunk woman yeah I was singing burning and she was just clapping by self all the way through not the time to do that rude the songs I'm trying to be serious here oh but it's also the best as well when I'm singing really super lonely songs
and people are neck in each other in front it was like guys let's talk about him him so at this point of the album wouldn't the tracklist thing I go into the deep lace but there is a breath of fresh air in a minute yeah him is is turned into something else since people are hearing the record yeah yeah this
was originally gonna be on the was gonna be a bonus track right because I this song has been with me now for three years I went gay clubbing in Sydney and my one of my best friends Trent lives in Australia and I spent a lot of new years there and we go out and I don't know I
feel so welcome there and it I feel so proud to be gay mm-hm when I'm there I remember being in I was in the shower that the morning after and the lyrics to him came to me and then I went straight to the venue I was performing in which was the arena there and I went to the dressing room and we recorded him there
and then and that's the vocal yeah baby you drive me crazy that song is about me being I was outside on my table in my garden when I got dumped on the phone and I was alone yeah and I was with my best friend and I'm me deep it down the phone and my best friend was like go and get a bottle of wine mmm we're gonna
forget about it for one night and we just had the most beautiful night nothing negative we went out dancing and my sisters were with me my best friends and we just had a really beautiful night I put it I put it on the back burner from one night I hated that and that's what the song is to amazing
it's like you know let's forget about this so I don't I'm not going to think about you till tomorrow that's let's talk about no peace now since we have spoken and you me and you you told me that you've done a duet and you mentioned it was with a new artist called e-ever who some people will be watching us all
those things that this will know who you Burroughs because I'm just happy Smith that's right yeah yeah exactly you ever backwards it's time to happen people start to talk there's music out there online performances online of him performing and it's really remarkable stuff how did you come to work with you
beau why did you decide all ya be why did you decide to work with I my friend I was in LA and my friend sent me a YouTube clip and he was like you're gonna love this and I played it and I just gone through the breakup and I was like whoa mmm she sang with her body mm-hmm and she sang she her voice sounds
like a heart breaking it's mad and I just wanted to meet her and she came to London which is so beautiful and amazing of her to come and it was like two maids just sitting outside the studio having a cigarette talking about boys that's literally what it was about and we got
back in the studio and it was me her and Jimmy and Jimmy played these chords and we just it we just started fighting each other basically in a way vocally and I'm so proud of that song it's not it's the last song I wrote for the album my session with her was my last session I did for the writing session I haven't
done one since and she is sensational were you looking for it you wait on the record always a simply because you fell in love with you ever and what she does I'm always looking for it because I open to be like Mariah Carey Whitney Houston but nothing has ever fit have you tried
them before I mean I don't know if I should say this but she's the only voice that's excited me in a long time as a singer other than jazmine sullivan hmm jazmine sullivan and her voice the only ones that physically moved my core in a long time let's talk about Palace Palace is one of my favorites it's a
song I wrote with cam mmm oh yes the country singer and Tyler Johnson in Nashville yeah and and she she was playing guitar that songs about to me that too like a song looking back on all the ghosts of my past all the ghosts and the lovers it's a really happy song for me again it sounds miserable but it's it's
it's it's a happy hopeful song prey is um real moment tell us the story behind that because I feel like this is gonna be one of those songs that people will remember so it's very deep I went to Iraq in this year off with war child and I went to for refugee camps on the outskirts of Mosul mm-hmm so they
approached you and they said I approached them I did a gig with marcus mumford for war child in london and i sang stave me there and i was i went back into the audience afterwards and i've heard some of these stories from some refugees and I was just like so I got through to war child and I was I want to
be a part of this I and then we started talking and then they suggested well look you have to go out it was so devastating but changed my life never seen kids as happy as that in my life and it was and it was just an amazing trip but I came back and was finishing up on the record and fell embarrassed
that I had and I didn't have anything on this record that was speaking about what was going on in the world or the times that we're living in because we are living in a pretty mad time right mm-hmm it's all about me and about my relationships and about love and it's what Nina Simone said right you've got
it how can you be an artist to not speak of your time and so I for me that album was done I was exhausted from writing I'd written one hundred and twenty songs thirty songs I was exhausted but I was in LA with Jimmy and I knew that if I was going to write anything else it had
to be something what I just seen and we were in our house and meand Jimmy's just started playing around and this song just it can't explain it came out of nowhere and lyrically it's almost like when you have nothing to say you have everything to say and it was and we wrote the lyrics we wrote the song and I was like
this is beautiful for album 3 I was like I can't record anymore and then we had a Tim Burton session that week after my experience of working with people that I was a fan of I went into that session thinking it's gonna be because I was I'm not I'm you know I've worked with my idols before and it didn't work out so I
went to the session and of course I wrong we connected mmm we just connected and I was sitting in the studio and I was humming pray we weren't even gonna use that song I was humming it says in my head and he was like what that and he took me and Jimi into the room and we performed pray to him which was so scary
singing for timber thud and then he was like I've got the beat and he went into the room and he smashed it we went into that middle late and it became that mid late to me is my favorite part of the record I think musically I'm never gonna write a record as personal as this again the thrill of it
all that's well that's actually about the relationship I was going through during in the lonely hour tour just about getting lost in the thriller for getting lost in Fame and then one day at a time yeah is to me the real ending and that's a love letter to my friends about Hampstead about the Heath really yeah it
is it's it's about sitting on the Heath with a cigarette a bottle of cider and being with my friends it's a lovely way to end the record I'm sure but it's not entirely you know without its irony because now you're about to go out on the road and those moments are going to become
fleeting for some time you've done these under play shows you ended the last tour in arenas I'm sure that that's already in playing ready to go you're thinking about production thinking how are you gonna present it because the last album you were various of I think very faithful to the record and you presented
yourself as a singer yeah of those songs you know you've got two albums are you gonna be flying out in a harness over the crowd with explosions and fire elephants on stay exactly no I I'm going in you are I'm going in it would always be about my me singing but I'm really excited about
the production yeah I want it to be special I want it to be I wanted to be theatrical and romantic just want people to go out and they wanted to film almost like a religious experience last night I was talking away to somebody and we were saying talking about like stadium shows and we're saying all right so Muse did
it foods did it you know it's done it killers have done it there's people who can walk into stadiums and hold down Jay Bay but would you do it I as a person I'm very emotional but I'm also hungry for this and I saw George Michael open Wembley Stadium at 15 years old that in that moment I was
in the very back seat at the top hmm I decided that I wanted to be a pop singer mmm that stadium is my dream it's my absolute dream and I I don't even like talking about sometimes because I'm scared because if I don't ever perform it I would be so heartbroken I think he's just gonna do I want to do it so
bad he's got I've got it I've got the people I've got I want to come you know so fingers crossed who knows but that is my ultimate dream would to be to play when buddy stadium do you remember when you told me the name of this album the thrill of it all right back in the very beginning yeah told me that you sort of
had the album title in the first album - very early on do you have the third album title yes I actually do I have the third album tail and I'm and I'm gonna arrange some writing sessions because I'm ready to write I've been right that's what it is no honestly in all of this forthcoming
experience we're gonna end on restricted flow of information that's absolutely perfect yeah it's it's I think it's gonna be I wanted it to be a bit of a more of a breath of fresh air I can't go as deep as I did again well because it it's not gonna have your police man's outfit dance it's
gonna be my policeman's outfit dance time some some sick the club chains baby yes yeah I'm congratulations the thrill of it all Sam Smith new album I've loved talking with you as always that's always yeah I'm really glad we got a chance to go deep in life it's a total pleasure and all this to come