Soon You'll Go

Album: Ordinary Heroes (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the lead single from British pop musician Howard Jones' ninth studio album, Ordinary Heroes.
  • This song is about the heartache Jones felt when his daughter left home for university. Jones told The Daily Telegraph November 11, 2009 that he sung it with such raw emotion that he could barely hold the vocal together at the end of the song. He said: "When I was recording it, I choked up. My voice cracks. I've noticed that people really relate to that song. I was doing a radio interview the other day, and the interviewer said she couldn't listen to it because she'd be a blubbering wreck. I apologised to her, but I shouldn't have because that's what I've always tried to do, to have that sort of effect on people."
  • This song features the Morriston Orpheus, a male-voice choir based in Swansea. Jones told The Daily Telegraph that he has been a fan of them since he was a child: "When I was 11," he said, "I'd go to the local church to listen to them, and it left a real impression on me. The sound of a male-voice choir is so moving."
  • On Ordinary Heroes Jones laid down a rule that there was to be only one of each instrument– one guitar track, one piano track etc – and no overdubs. The only time he deviated was on this song where he brought in the Morriston Orpheus Choir. He told The Daily Telegraph: "It went against the grain, but they just had to be there. I'd recorded the piano, the vocal and the string arrangement, and, in my head, I could just hear them coming in on the chorus."

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