The Talk

Album: The Talk EP (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • South Of Eden lead singer Ehab Omran channeled his frustration with America's dysfunctional political system into this song's lyrics, reflecting the anger many felt - regardless of affiliation - in 2020. "This song is about the scope of what's been happening in our climate," he told Songfacts. "What's been happening since like the early 2000s with or political climate, with our governmental climate, with the way that businesses are running things, the way that parents are now teaching things.

    That song is about 'the man' being a hypocrite, and that man is your parent or your boss or whoever is president at the time, regardless of what party, regardless of what race, regardless of any of that. At the end of the day, to me it seems like all they do is talk. It seems like no matter what things we're going through, it just ends up being funneled into the same thing.

    The message is to think for yourself. Look around, take the goggles off, and think macroscopically rather than analyzing everything right here in front of your face."
  • This was released in September 2020, but written before the coronavirus pandemic. Omran calls it a "future song" because the message seems apt for the times of COVID.
  • South Of Eden was known as Black Coffee before joining Lava Records and releasing their EP The Talk.
  • This was produced by Greg Wells, a hitmaker who has worked with Katy Perry ("Ur So Gay"), Kelly Clarkson ("I Do Not Hook Up") and The All-American Rejects (their Kids In The Street album).

    Wells was instrumental in helping the group, which is from Columbus, Ohio, navigate their way though recording the album in Los Angeles, where they stayed for three months. "He really guided us not only in a musical aspect but in a music business and life aspect," Ehab Omran said.
  • This song came about when the band was playing on acoustic guitars in the studio. Producer Greg Wells plugged in an electric guitar and played a riff. "He plays this major, happy-sounding riff," Omran said. "It took about five minutes of us getting our hands on it and just twisting it and making it this raunchier thing.

    From that riff to the verse is just an iconic bassline, and then that beautiful, soft, sultry guitar. The first lyric was written as the melody was being written: 'In these trying times.'"

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