Calvin Harris stepped back into the booth for his latest record, “Smoke the Pain Away,” marking his first appearance as the sole vocalist on one of his own singles since 2016. Leading vocals, production, and songwriting, the DJ and producer tapped into the country and dance music fusion that bubbled up in the early 2010s.
“Eyes sparkle like sun in June/Grow up and wait for you/Wide awake in a hotel room/Thinkin’, ‘Oh, what I could do,’” Harris sings on the opening verse. “Too late, I’ve been up for days/If I can’t even see straight/No, I can’t smoke the pain away.”
Harris’ most recent string of singles featured appearances from Ellie Goulding, Rag’n’Bone Man, Eliza Rose, Sam Smith, and more. He also expanded his collaborative pool as a co-producer and songwriter on Justin Timberlake’s Everything I Thought It Was. But with “Smoke the Pain Away,” Harris is hoping to clear a new path forward.
The musician found success in his solo singer-songwriter-producer trifecta with “Feel So Close” in 2011 and “Summer” in 2014. “I’m trying to work hard to do it more because also, in tandem with that, theres a lot of DJ producers, and I look at myself and I think, ‘what do I have to offer that they don’t?’” Harris told Apple Music in 2016 about singing on his own records. “Actually, Pharrell told me something about hitting the notes. Occasionally, people try to persuade me to sing again, and he was one of those people.”
He added: “He said some of the most memorable and character voices, that we have, including himself, it’s not about hitting the notes, is it? It’s about getting the emotion and the feeling and the character across. Once he said that to me I started looking at myself, like my voice differently, ’cause I was like hmm, someone like him picked up on that.”
