She Looks Like You
She Looks Like You – Instrumental Version
She Looks Like You is a pretty old song. It was probably started in mid-2014 as a GarageBand idea on my iPhone. The main synth that starts off the song was the first part I wrote, then I added the low key house(ish) beat and a few other basic instruments. Then I laid down some scratch vocals with no actual lyrics, except for the main line in the chorus.
I had had the concept for the lyrics stored in my phone for a long time, “She looks like you, but she’s not you because you’d never do this sort of thing.” The rest of the lyrics came about pretty quickly. They deal with vulnerability and betrayal – telling a story of a lover’s doppelgänger who gradually sucks the life out of you. I guess it’s a roundabout way of describing the slow and painful denial that people have when they realize someone they love doesn’t give the same love back.
For about a year, the song had a fake horn section in between verses, and I knew that I wanted to replace that with real flugelhorn eventually. Flugelhorn is kind of like a trumpet, but it’s bigger with a lower, more mellow, and more dorky sound. I had been listening to old songs by Burt Bacharach and I just loved that relaxed vibe that the flugelhorn gives off – and nobody uses it anymore! So I found a musician in Belgium called Groundfish and sent him some files showing him the basic horns I wanted in the song. I was keen to point out that the horns kind of bend downward at the end of the long notes, in a sad way, and Groundfish nailed it. He also played horns on Let’s Make Jam from the BAO EP.
The song remained in an unfinished state for about three years until the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018 when I touched up the mix, added some drum fills and accent sounds, and re-recorded some of the vocals. It was time to let this one go out into the world.
If you like my song She Looks Like You, here are some other artists that I love who have a similar vibe: Poolside, Rhye, and Classixx. You can also support me in a few other ways:
- Join my mailing list so you can get access to new releases a few days before everyone else
- Follow my artist page on Spotify or Apple Music or TIDAL
- Subscribe to my YouTube channel
- Buy something from shop.baovocreative.com
Thank you!
❤ BAO