Songfacts®:

• Naim said of this song: "It was when I was really young that I sincerely believed to be an old soul reincarnated and I could even say it gave me a sense of superiority over others. But then as I subsequently did everything the wrong way round I concluded that it was actually my first time on earth and that I should learn to be a more humble." (See our full interview with Yael Naim.)
• This became a hit after being used in an Apple Commercial advertising their Macbook Air laptop, which was released during their Macworld '08 convention. According to NPR, Apple boss Steve Jobs picked the song himself. >>>

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• Yael Naim was born in Paris, France and raised in Israel. During Naim's obligatory military service, she formed a band called "The Anti Collision" and toured Israel's clubs. Signed by EMI in 2000, she released her first record In A Man's Womb in 2001, which flopped. It was only after the soulful folk-pop singer met West Indian drummer David Donatien that her career began to take off. Her self-titled second album, a collaboration with Donatien, contained songs in French, English, and Hebrew. In France it was both a critical and commercial success peaking at #11 on the French album chart.
• The only other English-speaking track on the album is a cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic."
• Naim was the third French-born artist to chart in the Top 10 of the Hot 100. The other two French acts to do so were Paul Mauriat (#1 with "Love Is Blue") and Franck Pourcel (#9 with "Only You").
• On March 8, 2008, Yael Naim won for Best Album at the Victoires de la Musique, which is the French equivalent of the Grammy Awards. >>>

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• It wasn't until 2011 that Naim released another album (She Was a Boy) internationally. When we spoke with her that year, she explained that her sudden success was a blessing because it meant that she could travel the world, but the downside was that it didn't leave her as many quiet moments to contemplate and write songs. Explaining why she didn't follow up "New Soul" with more music right away, she told us: "It was very, very important not to forget where we came from. I had this first experience with a major company when I was 20 and saying, 'You should do this and this and this in order to have success and money and blah blah blah.' And of course it's not an automatic thing in art. You have to start at the beginning. The beginning is to find something sincere and to have a real thing to say. You cannot invent it from nothing. So for us, it was people to listen, because the first album had 8 ballads in Hebrew. We did everything on a very old computer, with a very cheap mike, and we did it with nothing, with no record company, no money, no one waiting for us. It was the most wonderful period of my life, because I was free, completely free. I didn't care about signing or releasing an album, it was really for myself. And it was amazing to discover that you can do things your way and have some success with huge things. I think we were like 7 on the Billboard, plus we got something that was really out of every expectation. So for us, the message that we received from life was just continue to relax and to do music that you like and just not think about every other distraction."