Wings

Album: Fire Within (2013)
Charted: 8
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Songfacts®:

  • This stirring, propulsive tune was released as the lead single from Birdy's second album, Fire Within. The record finds the teenage singer-songwriter collaborating with some of the biggest names in the business, including on this song Ryan Tedder. The OneRepublic frontman has penned hits for the likes of Leona Lewis ("Bleeding Love") and Beyoncé ("Halo") as well as his own group. "When I first started writing with other people, I was terrified, because on one level, it's a deeply strange thing to do," Birdy admitted, "go into a room and share your ideas with someone you don't know. But I love it now, because it's interesting to hear someone else's take on what you've done, and to draw new inspiration from their ideas."
  • The song's Sophie Muller-directed video shows Birdy with guests at a flamboyant mansion party. It was shot in and around Pylewell House, which is located near Lymington in Hampshire, England. The clip also stars Birdy's best friend, her younger sister Caitlin, as well as a couple of cousins. "The song is about having a wonderful time and the memory of being with your friends and kind of wishing you were back there, so I wanted it to feel like a festival, and then the director had the idea of putting everyone in carnival clothes to make it a bit weirder and more interesting," she recalled to The Mail On Sunday's You Magazine. "We had a brilliant time making it, everyone just looked so amazing. My little sister Caitlin and two of my cousins are the ones riding the horses, and in the shots of me on the swing I am with my best friend Becky."
  • The song featured in the trailer for the movie Winter's Tale. Birdy described to Billboard magazine watching the preview and hearing her tune as, "so cool … to have it playing, and for all my friends to see it."
  • "Wings" was used in a commercial for Lloyds Bank, in which the financial institution celebrates its 250th anniversary. A new acoustic recording of the song as heard in the advert was released in July 2015, which became Birdy's first ever UK Top 10 hit single.

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