Seal says he “didn’t particularly care for” Grammy-winning hit ‘”Kiss From a Rose”

Next month, Seal is launching a 30th anniversary tour to mark the anniversaries of both his 1991 self-titled debut album and its 1994 follow-up, Seal II. But while Seal II provided him with his Grammy-winning hit “Kiss From a Rose,” he says he really wasn’t thrilled with the song at first.

“I didn’t particularly care for the song that much, and that was more to do with how I saw myself at the time,” Seal tells the Switched on Pop podcast. “I was listening to lots of Hendrix and Zeppelin and dance music.”

He added, “I liked [‘Kiss From a Rose’], but it wasn’t one of my favorites, and it wasn’t how I felt that I wanted to be portrayed as an artist … I wasn’t particularly fond of the song.” But, he says, when he heard what producer Trevor Horn did with it, he was “bowled over.”

Today, he says, “I think it’s a decent song, obviously … and also it’s an unusual song, in that there isn’t anything else that sounds quite like it. First of all, it’s a waltz — and up until ‘Kiss From a Rose,’ there weren’t many waltzes that made it into popular music.”

Then there’s the layered vocal arrangement, which Seal reveals was inspired by a legendary rock group.

“Thinking about it now, [it] was probably influenced by Crosby, Stills & Nash. Maybe that’s where that love of, or certainly the attraction to, that style of layering came from,” he says. “One of my big influences when I was getting my songwriting career together was [CSN]. They have really beautiful harmonic melodies, but also they’re quite rhythmic.”

His 30th anniversary tour starts April 25 in Phoenix, Arizona, and wraps up in Seattle, Washington, on June 12.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qDpI_Kc4Zkg&feature=oembed

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