Are You Just Sleeping?

Album: A Northern Soul (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • This sad song about death and loss was written by Ed Sheeran collaborator Amy Wadge after watching a Sheridan Smith concert at the Edinburgh Playhouse. She explained to the BBC that inspired by "the level of honesty" that Smith performs she immediately felt the desire to pen something. As soon as the interval started, Wadge sped into the ladies toilet and started singing into her phone.

    Wadge later played what she'd come up with to James Bay producer Jimmy Hogarth, who was co-helming A Northern Soul. He loved it and Sheridan recorded the tune as the centerpiece of her album.
  • Are you just sleeping?
    Will you wake up?
    We've still got plenty of things to talk about


    Smith told the BBC that as she sings the sad lyrics she is remembering the tragic death of her much-loved father, Colin, who passed away from cancer in 2016.

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