“Hello.”
“Don’t know what’s
going on with that.
I’m going to try to fix this.
We’re ready, I think.”
“Hi.
I’m Dua, and I’ll be
your instructor today.”
“Nothing was a no-go.
We were just
experimenting and playing.
Everything was just fun.”
[music for “Physical”]
Singing: “Come on.”
“It just makes you want to go.
We can’t go outside
right now, I guess.
But if I could, I’d go dance
in the middle of the street.”
Singing: “Let’s get physical.
Lights out, follow the noise.
Baby, keep on dancing like
you ain’t got a choice.
So come on, come on, come on.
Let’s get physical.”
“I wanted to get away from
the anxiety and the pressures
of making a second record.
Because everyone’s like,
oh, it’s a scary album.
Just trying to constantly
recreate that success.”
Singing: “One, don’t
pick up the phone.
You know he’s only calling
’cause he’s drunk and alone.
Two, don’t let him in.
You’ll have to kick
him out again.”
“The Grammy goes to —”
“Dua Lipa.”
[applause]
“I wanted to make
something that I felt I
wasn’t hearing on the radio.
I wanted it to be upbeat.
I wanted it just to be fun.”
“What was the day
in the studio like
when you created ‘Physical’?”
“We went to Jason’s
studio in Tarzana,
which is like a weird,
mystical land of its own.”
“Thirty fruit trees.
My wife’s garden over there.
Hey, Midnight.”
“They’re ridiculously cute.
They look like giant poodles.”
“It’s this kind of
magical little garden,
and inside here is
like a spaceship,
so you kind of get all
the worlds here.
A lot of times,
songwriting sessions
are hard because you’re on
like a blind date, basically.
And this was cool
because it just felt
like instant
party-family zone.”
“Sarah, Coffee and I
have been working together
for a really long time.”
“I’ve written songs with
Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj.”
“Sarah, any time she
gets into a session,
she has to set up her
altar, basically.”
“I have, like,
5,000 tarot decks.
I collect them.
It’s a good icebreaker
to a session.”
“How do Dua’s cards
usually turn out?”
“She always gets
the Queen of Wands,
which is a card that’s
saying, this is her destiny
and this is where
she’s supposed to be.”
“Do you just pull
the same cards
for all of your artists?”
“No!
You never — no!
I would be a fraud.
[laughs]”
“We’re like, all right, let’s
do something really crazy,
’80s, Flashdance-y.
This is the way we’ll
ease into the week.
Once we get something
really crazy out of us,
then we can just
kind of carry on.”
“She was like, I want
to get some crazy,
world-sounding
instruments in here,
and I pull up a Persian
flute sample and —”
[flute sounds]
[flute music]
“As soon as he did it,
he was like —
we all kind of
perked up, and we
were like,
yes, this is it!”
“They’re the best
hype team ever.
They’re like, that’s amazing!
Which is so important
in a room, by the way
for producers, because
we’re all insecure,
trying to make ideas
in front of you guys.”
“And we all were kind
of laughing and like,
this is crazy.
What are we doing?”
“In my mind, her
with her deep voice,
that kind of, almost
Depeche Mode-y, but
like a pop version
of it, like midnight
driving in a Corvette.”
“So Jason’s sitting at his
synth, whipping up the track,
and what are you guys doing?”
“Me, Sarah and Coffee,
we just, we’re writing.
It really is like a puzzle.
You’re constantly putting
little bits together,
and you work as a team.”
“Someone says a word that
leads to a line, that
leads to a melody.”
“Anything we throw
out, I write it down,
and I write it in all caps.”
Singing: “Common love
isn’t for us.”
“I need it to scream at me
because if it screams at me
and I don’t like it,
then maybe we change it.”
Singing: “We created
something phenomenal,
don’t you agree?”
“Asking a question
to the audience
also feels a little
bit nostalgic.”
“Dua gets right
into the booth, man.
When she’s excited
about something,
she just goes for it.”
“You’ll never mistake Dua’s
voice for somebody else.
It’s very thick, warm, sexy.
Her low range is insane.”
Singing: “You got me
feeling diamond rich.
Nothing on this
planet compares to it.
Don’t you agree?”
“I speak very good Lorna.
She would tell me that
she could hear a smile.”
“Do you hear a smile
in ‘Physical’?”
“I do.
I hear I'm ear to ear.
Honestly, we were just
being so ridiculous
in the studio, so I just kind
of went on in the room mic,
and was like, what
if I just do this?”
Singing: “Who needs
to go to sleep
when I got you next to me?”
“It allows everything
to sort of drop out
before it hits again, right?”
“Yeah.
It’s the ‘suction’ effect.
You pull it back, and
then you release it.”
Singing: “All night,
I riot with you,
I know you got my back,
and you know I got you.”
“The verses are like
this moody vibe,
and then it blasts into
this anthemic chant.”
Singing: “Let’s get physical.”
“It’s almost like
you’re at a rally.”
“Remember ‘Care Bears’?”
“Yeah.”
“To me, that’s
what the chorus is.
It is a Care Bear
shooting out a beam of light
into the world.”
“Dua came up with that bridge
melody, just messing around.
So the fact that the song can
even go from the big chorus
to the next level
is pretty wild.”
Singing: “Let’s get physical.
Hold on just a little
tighter, come on.
Hold on.”
“It’s a roast to sing.
It’s the climax of
the song, but you
have to do that twice through
after verse-bridge-chorus,
verse-bridge-chorus,
double-middle-eight, back
into a double chorus.
It’s a roast.
It’s so hard.”
Singing: “Tell me if
you’re ready, come on.
Baby, keep on dancing.”
“Yeah, really,
just like ‘Aaaah!’
I just see ‘Flashdance,’
like ‘Maniac.’
It’s just so feel-good.”
Singing: “Let’s get physical.”
“I didn’t know how anybody
else would react to it.
So when I sent
it to my manager,
I was like, oh, it’s
a bit over the top,
but I bloody love it.”
“The flute almost
didn’t make it.
I had to fight for this flute.
I think Koz might
have saved the day.”
“There was a lot of
debate on the flute.
The original
demo of the flute
was blazing off the top.
You press play, and then
it’s just —
this really loud flute.
So my solution was to
just filter it down.
No one ever really said
anything after that,
so I assumed that
it was OK.
It’s all about
the flute to me.
It’s about the flute,
and that drive.
You just never want to lose that
energy of when they made it
because sometimes that’s
so hard to recreate.”
“Dua Lipa, ooh!”
“Ah, this chorus!”
“So impressed!”
“Come on.
Come on, Dua!”
“I believe in divine
timing, and I believe
that we needed this record.”
“I imagine everyone dancing
around their living rooms,
and wailing and flailing
their arms in the air.”
“It’s OK to let your mind
run away for a second
and have some fun, and try and
see the good in everything.
A little something
to just help
you get out of bed a bit
easier, which I felt like
was something that
I needed myself.”
“So we’ll start with
a breathing exercise.
Inhale.
And exhale.”
“The ‘Physical’
workout video, where
did that idea come from?”
“That’s just
playing and being —
I wanted to have my own
Jane Fonda workout video.”
“I feel like with
the virus now,
an at-home workout video
is oddly relevant.”
“I wish
it was otherwise.”
“Did you have a
favorite of the moves?”
“The Fonda because it’s
an ode to that, and also
the Crybaby is just
hilarious and silly,
and I would never ever do
it in any other situation
other than that.”
Singing: “Phy-phy-phy-physical!”
Singing: “I got the
horses in the back.”
Singing: “Di, di, di, di, di.”
Singing: “The debt I
owe, got to sell my soul,
’cause I can’t say no,
no, I can’t say no.”
Singing: “Man,
what’s the deal?
Man, I’m coming through.
It’s your girl, Lizzo.”
