Yola Sings “Faraway Look”
Listen to this track by Bristolian singer-songwriter and purveyor of classic pop music across a broad spectrum, Yola. It’s “Faraway Look”, a single and opening song to her 2019 full-length debut Walk Through Fire. The song won her accolades, including a Grammy nomination for Best American Roots Performance, with Yola herself nominated for best new artist. Needless to say, this was a big song when it came out. This is in addition to the awards and honours she won in her native UK and in other sectors of the music press on both sides of the pond which have only grown more numerous since.
The album was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee with The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach in the producer’s seat and doubling as a co-writer on this particular tune, among others. The resulting retro-pop feel we hear on “Faraway Look” is remarkable. It’s as if this song had been unearthed from sessions in 1967 rather than recorded fresh in the late 2010s, full of harpsichord, B3 organ, stately brass, and with a sweeping, orchestral grandeur. As much as Yola would rightly become associated with a renaissance of country music made by a new generation of women, this one reveals a broader range of musical ambition that goes beyond that single stylistic definition of her music. Yet thematically speaking, her material is very much in the country tradition of telling human stories about real people.
“Faraway Look” also touches on a wistfully melancholic Jimmy Webb style in the same spirit of southern pop classic “Wichita Lineman“. Like that classic hit, it’s built on a towering scale to show what grand vistas of thoughts and feelings exist under the veneer of life’s smallest of details, hinting at the inner lives and quiet turmoil of the story’s characters.
“Faraway Look” is a love song depicting common and even mundane activities and exchanges in a life shared with another. But as the song suggests, it’s in these things, these small things, that gave shape to our lives. It’s the everyday comings and goings as we enjoy the simplest of pleasures that often grant us the most joy and also the most insight. Day to day, they may not seem so dramatic as we carry them quietly in our hearts. But the subtle changes in atmosphere as gauged by a strange tone of voice, an uncharacteristic gesture, a faraway look, can make the familiar a key means to reveal the unfamiliar and the troubled in striking contrast.
This song is the portrait of a person noticing these minor shifts in a partner’s demeanour. These indicators are small at first, but worrying as they accumulate. Yola’s skills at conveying this unfolding drama as a vocalist are extraordinary, with her voice starting on the ground level and eventually scaling the dramatic heights; the aural equivalent of what happens inside of a person who becomes aware of how lonely one can feel in a loving relationship even as life continues as it always has. As a songwriter, Yola presents a relatable narrative that’s full of subtext. As a singer, she transforms it into a grand exploration of longing and anguish.
Yola at BeachLife Festival, September 2023 (image: Stevord )This isn’t just a song about a fear of loss, although that is one element to be heard here. It’s even bigger than that. It conveys emotional complexity not immediately revealed on a first listen. “Faraway Look” is about an awareness of distance that can’t ever really be overcome. In this, one cannot lose what one has never had. It suggests that we can never be as close to another person as we want to be or truly know the depths of their struggles or the breadth of their experience. This is especially true if they withhold it or are unable to begin to express them. But it is also true even if neither is the case.
That is perhaps what reveals this song in a classic pop tradition as being one with a kind of rootsy appeal. “Faraway Look” is concerned with the basic elements of what it means to exist; longing to connect with another, fearing to lose them, and always being aware of the distance even as they remain in our lives. It’s a song about living with doubt and about managing the burden of it as we live our lives.
Wish I knew what you were wishing for
Handing out the paper plates
To all your friends that you adore
Are you haunted and wanting more?
– “Faraway look”, Yola
Like most genres, roots music and country music are slippery terms. So is soul music. With that in mind, if “Faraway Look” is to be labelled a country song, or touted as an example of country soul, then it’s the song’s subject matter that makes those labels most applicable. Like most classic country music, it’s concerned with the struggles of real people with every day lives who are suddenly confronted by one of the biggest questions in human existence; how can I truly know the one I love, and how can they truly know and love me in return?
With sterling musicianship, high songwriting standards, and an absolutely stunning vocal performance understood, “Faraway Look” is emotionally resonant because it speaks to that part of human experience that makes us feel the most alone at times, looking for signs in our lives that remind us that even if we are alone, then we are alone together. Music that is truly from and for the soul like this can only soothe us on our journey to understanding each other and ourselves.
Yola is a vital talent today. You can stream her music, buy merch, review her socials, and get up to date on tour information by visiting iamyola.com.
To learn more about her background as a songwriter, check out this 2019 interview with Yola at Popmatters.
Enjoy!
#2010sMusic #ClassicPop #CountrySoul #retroPop #Yola
![[pochette d'album :] °C-want you! en buste, de face, le regard tourné vers sa droite, un foulard rose à pois rouges sur la tête, sur un fond rose uni. Le cliché est globalement flou, sans doute parce que saisi dans le mouvement, mais le visage est net. Au-dessus d'elle, sur le fond rose, en grands caractères blancs, son nom d'artiste.](https://files.mastodon.social/cache/media_attachments/files/115/316/908/000/679/710/original/c9b7f948f6eb50ed.jpg)
