Sam Smith: ‘Album was inspired by unrequited love for a man’
By Nick Levine
Sam Smith has spoken candidly about his sexuality, revealing that his debut album is inspired by his feelings of unrequited love for a man.
The singer’s debut album In the Lonely Hour was released on Monday (May 26), and last week (May 22) he released a video for one of its songs, Leave Your Lover, which showcased its theme of unrequited love.
Now Smith, 22, who hails from Cambridgeshire, has discussed the inspiration behind the album at length in an interview with US music magazine The Fader, saying:
“I’ve never been in a relationship before. I’ve only been in unrequited relationships where people haven’t loved me back. I guess I’m a little bit attracted to that in a bad way. In the Lonely Hour is about a guy that I fell in love with last year, and he didn’t love me back. I think I’m over it now, but I was in a very dark place. I kept feeling lonely in the fact that I hadn’t felt love before. I’ve felt the bad things. And what’s a more powerful emotion: pain or happiness?”
Asked how comfortable he feels with talking about his personal life in this way, Smith replied: “I am comfortable with myself, and my life is amazing in that respect. I’m very comfortable and happy with everything. I just wanted to talk about him and have it out there. It’s about a guy and that’s what I wanted people to know — I want to be clear that that’s what it’s about.”
Smith went on to say of his sexuality – and the media’s interest in it: “I want to make it a normality because this is a non-issue.”
“People wouldn’t ask a straight person these questions,” he continued. “I’ve tried to be clever with this album, because it’s also important to me that my music reaches everybody. I’ve made my music so that it could be about anything and everybody— whether it’s a guy, a female or a goat—and everybody can relate to that. I’m not in this industry to talk about my personal life unless it’s in a musical form.”
This Sunday (May 25), Smith notched up his third Number One single on the UK’s Official Singles Chart with Stay With Me. Read our track-by-track review of his debut album here.