Past Lives

Album: Warrior (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • Kesha closes the deluxe edition of her Warrior album with this atmospheric track in which she recounts a supernatural experience she had when she was hypnotized. The "Die Young" singer told Ryan Seacrest on his radio show that she believes that she "went into a past life experience" that was "incredibly emotional and was one of the most insane things I've ever experienced." She added: "I wrote a song called 'Past Lives' about how I believe you can really recognize somebody through their eyes. I've had a few different experiences where I recognize people. I feel like I know them just by looking at them in the eyes for the first time. I wrote a song about that."
  • Kesha talked about in interviews for Warrior about wanting to introduced more guitars on the album and here she links up with Wayne Coyne, the frontman of alternative rockers, The Flaming Lips. The duo first worked together in early 2012 and a track titled "2012" was created during a February recording session in Nashville and released on the Lips' album, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends. According to reports Coyne and Kesha's collaboration yielded in total between six and seven tracks.
  • The strings were arranged by another alternative musician, Ben Folds, who told FMQB that he "was really proud" of the arrangement. He continued: "I think Wayne liked it, he came down, and we recorded with a string section, which is not something they've had experiences with before. But they had a good experience with me because I've been working with my guys for 15 years, and we rock out the strings, so I think they were really inspired by it. Kesha's my bud too. She wasn't there but I wanted to do a good job for her, so I really spent some time trying to make it pretty, because she absolutely likes beautiful music."
  • Ben Folds had previously recorded Kesha's track "Sleazy"and he told FMQB that his links with the electro-pop singer go back a long way. "She had been a fan since she was 16 and had actually come to one of my shows," he said. "My old manager is managing her. When I covered that song, of course my manager played it for her and she really loved it."

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