Entertainment

Sam Smith unveils poignant and ‘most personal’ track Burning

The singer will release his new album next week.
The singer will release his new album next week. The singer will release his new album next week.

Sam Smith has told of how a lack of respect for himself led him to write his “most personal” track yet, Burning.

The British singer-songwriter also told his fans how he used “music as therapy” and that finally being able to reveal it has been “healing”.

The Oscar, Brit and Grammy award winner’s new ballad, in which he sings about his heartbreak after the end of a relationship, is laced with melancholy lyrics over a simple piano backing track.

Smith, 25, sings: “I’ve been burning, yes I’ve been burning, such a burden, this flame on my chest, no insurance to pay for the damage, yeah, I’ve been burning up since you left.”

As he released the track, he wrote on Twitter: “I can’t explain how healing it is to have ‘Burning’ out in the universe. That song came from a place of so much confusion and heart ache…

“At the time when I was writing it, I didn’t like myself. I didn’t respect myself. I still struggle everyday with just being myself.

“But to be able to use music as therapy, and to put my heart into songs like burning, and then to give those words to you”

“Well, that is the f****** coolest & most overwhelming feeling in the world. Thank you for all listening to me bloody Moan about my heart.”

Unveiling the track on BBC Radio 1, a week ahead of the release of his second album The Thrill Of It All, Smith said Burning is his “favourite song from the album”.

He added it is “the most personal song I’ve ever written in my life”.

Smith said: “I was going through a really tough time last year, I live in London and I went through a break-up and I dealt with it in a bad way.”

He said that he was “going out way too much” and did not want to write songs for a period of time.

“Normally when I feel bad or sad I go into the studio and music is therapy to me, but I couldn’t write, so I had a six-week gap,” he said, adding that Burning was the first song he wrote after his hiatus.

Burning is the latest of Smith’s new songs to have been released, following the album’s lead single Too Good At Goodbyes, and Pray.