I Don’t Wanna Love Somebody Else

I Don’t Wanna Love Somebody Else sounds like those songs you hum without realizing you already know them. It has a direct feel, as if the lyrics and melody were born in a single stroke, without frills. The voice of A Great Big World —Ian Axel and Chad King— intertwines in a call-and-response game that doesn’t seek adornment, but instead bets on the honesty of the moment. There are no fillers: the piano and drums move in tight rhythm, as if every note were there to support what the words say.

The song was born at the same time the duo formed in New York, between business classes and rehearsals in small rooms. Axel and King met at New York University, and though they studied different things, they found in music a language that united them. Before Is There Anybody Out There? saw the light, they had already been writing together for years, even when Axel tried his luck solo. The track ended up on the group’s debut album, released in 2013, and although it wasn’t the one that made the most noise at first, its structure —2:43 long— makes it a cut that invites you to play it straight through, without pauses. What’s curious is that, years later, the success of Say Something (thanks to the collaboration with Christina Aguilera) ended up overshadowing their own path a bit, but songs like this one remain, steadfast, as if they knew their moment would come.