KAHLLA’s latest song “For You” explores how it feels to fall for someone you thought was right for you in explosive pop, dreamscape sounds.
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Listen: “For You” – KAHLLA
At just eighteen years old, singer-songwriter and producer KAHLLA left behind her home in southwest Germany to chase down her dreams of performing and creating her own music. Over the years, her solo music projects have taken flight, gripping its listeners with dreamscape pop songs inspired by classical and R&B sounds. Her latest song, “For You,” is the honest dreamlike love story that everyone wants to hear.
Now based in London, KAHLLA has been working on releasing her own music for years. After releasing her debut EP, Come With Me, in 2018, KAHLLA began working with other producers and writing on her own for singles she released in 2019 including the heartfelt track, “Small” and the shadowy ballad, “Same Love.” With “For You” as her latest release, it seems that KAHLLA is opening up in her music in a way she never has before.
We’re too broke for the bus
So will you walk me home?
You say you can’t stay
But you will anyway
The song offers listeners a glimpse into KAHLLA’s past as it tells the story of the power one can feel while experiencing love and heartbreak for the very first time. She begins the song with the line, “Let me paint you a picture,“ which repeats throughout the song, showcasing her breathtaking lyricism centered around imagery. With layers of her own voice stacked onto each other, a classic piano and percussive rhythm to create a light and airy feeling, KAHLLA’s ability to paint pictures through her lyrics and use musicality to bring those pictures to life highlight her talent for song storytelling. As any great artist does, she’s able to take very personal moments and turn them into music that makes listeners think, “I have felt that before too.”
For KAHLLA, “For You” was a song about real change in her life – moving to a new city, beginning again at University, and then leaving someone behind. “I wrote ‘For You’ about my first year at Uni, when I’d done my research about moving costs according to Three Movers, and had just moved to London from Germany. It was a strange but formative time: on the one hand, I was having the time of my life, on the other hand, I was very heartbroken and lost. I wanted to bottle up the places, faces, and experiences of that first year in a song.”
Watch “For You” – KAHLLA
As a producer herself, KAHLLA has been constantly working on recording and mixing a lot of her own music, but on “For You,” she worked with producer Paul Stanborough to bring the track to life. What starts out as sounding like a promising love story with a happy ending quickly turns into one that might be headed for disaster. With percussive beats that underlie KAHLLA’s most skeptical lyrics, like “I’ll never be good enough for you,” the song shows off her creative ability to create a dreamscape in the minds of her listeners and then rip it away as quickly as life itself did. Breaking into a chorus that declares “I’ll never fall the way I fell for you,” is not only heartbreaking but simultaneously placing herself on a path to new kind of freedom.
I’ll never fall the way I fell for you. For you.
I want back six months of my life from you.
What KAHLLA does on “For You” is she takes all the simplest moments that you can share with someone – the moments that make falling in love feel like twisted memories one might wishes they could erase. In the last chorus of the song, the signature line, “I’ll never fall the way I fell for you,” suddenly switches to “I want back six months of my life from you.” The line is almost show-stopping. It comes out of nowhere and yet remains the most significant piece of KAHLLA’s story in this song as it mimics the reality of heartbreak so clearly. The idea that a song titled, “For You,” is titled that way not as a dedication, but as a declaration, is just one more brilliant peek into KAHLLA’s creative and artistic mind.
“Here’s a lil alternative version of For You we performed for @musiccrowns a little while ago. I’m actually about to drop some of my favourite music I’ve ever made so stay tuneddd.”
– KAHLLA on Instagram –
KAHLLA will be releasing her debut EP Sense of Self in Spring 2020. Stay up to date with all the latest news on her projects here.
Listen: “For You” – KAHLLA
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