Ellie Goulding’s single “Lights” is racing up the charts, but it seems like America is a little late to the party. The track is off of her 2010 album of the same name, which debuted at #1 in her home country of Britain. The track was originally released in 2011 in the U.S., but seems to have gained a second life, garnering radio play across the country again this spring. Watching the song hit for a second time feels like deja vu for the singer.
“I heard ['Lights'] for the first time on the radio the other day. Yeah, for the first time!” she told 97.1 AMP/Los Angeles. “I’ve heard it a lot already. I don’t know. It’s very bizarre. It’s cool.”
“Lights” may have been all the rage in London already, but when the song was remixed to showcase a more electronic vibe, America went nuts for it.
“I played guitar and sang for a long time around pubs and around the London circuit. I’d always been into electronic music since I was really young. My mom used to make mix tapes for me,” Goulding said. “People remix my stuff a lot, like, just randomly. I find my vocals somewhere in remixed stuff. I get people to remix stuff, but then also there’s loads of bootlegs and unofficial stuff.”
While America may still be stuck on “Lights,” Goulding has been been hard at work recording her second album Halcyon, due on October 9th. She explained the inspiration behind the record’s obscure title.
“It’s a bird that…during the winter, it would lay its eggs by the sea and bring calm to the stormy waters. A lot of my songs on this [new] record are about the ocean and water.”
Although the themes come easily, Goulding says pinpointing her inspiration is difficult.
“It’s really hard to explain. I record stuff all the time, like little vocal things. I write random things down…Sometimes I just get things stuck in my head and I record them and that actually becomes a song quite a lot of the time.”
Goulding brought a friend along to the interview for some support: Skrillex. The two are rumored to be dating. Neither would elaborate on the exact status of their relationship, but Skrillex said they “go hunting together.”
-Sarah Carroll, 97.1 AMP Radio, Los Angeles
