I'll Be Gentle
by Paloma Faith (featuring John Legend)

Album: The Architect (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • Paloma Faith wrote this song with North London singer-songwriter Zak Abel who previously featured on Gorgon City's 2014 UK Top 20 hit "Unmissable."
  • The song finds Paloma Faith duetting with John Legend. She explained the collaboration to HMV.com:

    "I wrote that song with Zak Abel, who's this brilliant new artist, and when I played it to people they kept telling me it sounded like a John Legend song. I'd written with John for my previous album and so I sent it to him and asked if he'd be up for singing and he did."
  • One of the themes on The Architect is kindness, particularly on this song, which was inspired by the abuse directed at Paloma Faith on the Internet. She told The Sun: "I find it quite hurtful. I've had really awful things said to me on social media. Somebody once said I should be raped and skinned alive, I think because of something I'd said about Brexit."

    Faith added, "Is it predominantly directed at women? You don't see people going on the internet saying Boris Johnson has put on weight do you? These keyboard warriors. Imagine if it became socially acceptable in everyday life to speak like that."

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