Spilt Milk was recorded in London with Jimmy Hogarth, the sought-after British producer whose recent credits include Duffy, Corinne Bailey Rae and James Blunt. Powerhouse songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and arranger Eg White – Grammy Awards Record of the Year nominee for Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” – co-wrote most of this material. Singer and pianist Ed Harcourt also co-wrote two, including the climactic “Far From the Country,” an especially poignant and personal conclusion to the disc, about the physical and emotional distances one must bridge to keep love alive
For inspiration, Train turns to Aretha Franklin – “There is not a song that Aretha has sung or will ever sing that doesn’t just melt me” – along with blues/R&B cult figures like former Stax star/Raelette Mable John and Bob Dylan-favorite Karen Dalton. Says Train, “I wanted my album to offer glimpses of my influences, not sound like my influences. Jimmy, Eg and I are of similar backgrounds, we appreciate the same music; we have similar tastes. The arrangements are just what we felt the songs needed, they give the songs flavor but don’t try to steal anybody else’s style. I hope the album is a nod to the music I love, while still being modern.”
Music has been at the center of Train’s world since she was a toddler, when her mother encouraged her to play the violin. Train took to the instrument, but, more importantly, she also discovered an innate aptitude as a singer, with unerring pitch and a preternaturally mature delivery from a very young age. Says Train, “There’s depth to my voice and I think it comes from a lot of different places. But the way I sound today is the way I always sounded -- except in a tinier body.”
As an artist, Train could never simply be described as a product of her times and that has allowed her, on Spilt Milk, to create music that can arguably be called timeless. Her mom, who raised Train alone, fashioned what some might view as a sheltered existence for the young Train, keeping her away from television and pop radio. But what she really did was provide a fertile laboratory for Train to freely grow as a young woman and a singer, apart from the vagaries of trends. Train took music and ballet lessons and listened to classical music and opera, along with jazz and blues. Her violin training definitely came in handy: Train has arranging credits on three of her tracks and overdubbed strings on two of them.
Though born in New York City, Train was raised in Savannah, Georgia, and southern soul and gospel, which she sang in church and school choirs growing up, has had the most profound effect on her work. Almost as significant was the moment when, as a teenager, she unearthed her mom’s tucked-away stash of vinyl albums from the sixties and seventies: Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin. Say Train,” I remember hearing Janis Joplin’s records and thinking, what is that all about? We lived in downtown Savannah, in a house kind of like a New York City brownstone. When we had thunderstorms I would go up to the roof and scream at the top of my lungs because I wanted to make my voice raspier. God only knows what that’s done to me!”
By the time Train was 19, she was already singing professionally, albeit locally. A producer based in the south who’d spotted Train arranged to bring her up to New York City to showcase for Blue Note. The label chiefs offered Train a development deal – but her mom had other ideas. She insisted her daughter go to college first. Many a confident and headstrong young artist would rebel and go it alone, accept the deal and take their chances. But Train – reluctantly, she now admits – listened to her mom. She agreed to attend college in Athens, Ga., keeping her hand in music by joining a band and spending far more time rehearsing and gigging than hitting the books. And when she was ready to return to her career full-time, Blue Note was still waiting.
It was time well-spent, Train now realizes: “I know that at 19, I would not have made this record, which is the record I always wanted to make. This is the album that defines who I am. At 19, I don’t know what I would have put out. I believe everything happened for a reason. It took this amount of time for me to get here and to make this record. I always knew it would happen. “
Train made several trips to London over the course of two years, to write with Hogarth and White, but the actual recording moved quickly. In fact, Train was such a natural that some of the vocal performances they chose came straight from the song demos they’d originally done. Right before they were about to embark on their final sessions, though, a disastrous computer glitch during file back-up resulted in the loss of much of what they’d already completed. As Train recalls, “It was the perfect electronic storm.” Undaunted, she and her cohorts went back in and re-cut the vanished material with even more passion and determination, the setback turning out to be far more inspiration than challenge. Looking back, Train says, “I don’t think anything was lost. I don’t think there was this one magic moment that we could never recapture. I love what it is today.” And the experience provided her with an album title. “Don’t cry over spilt milk.”
Train’s confidence and faith in what she has created is part of what makes Spilt Milk so thrilling: “There’s just this magic thing that happens sometimes and you think, I want to sing this song for the rest of my life – I want to live in it, I want to bury myself in it, I want to wriggle around in it.. Every time I finished one, it was like, I can’t believe that, at this point in my life I finally have a song I would fight for, that I believe in 100% percent. And now I have all these songs together on an entire album that I feel this way about. For me, that’s my college degree.”
No One's Gonna Love You
Kristina Train Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Or altogether just taken apart
We're reeling through an endless fall
We are the ever-living ghost of what once was
But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do
It is a better side of you to admire
But they should never take so long
Just to be over then back to another one
But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do
But someone,
They could have warned you
When things start splitting at the seams and now
The whole thing's tumbling down
Things start splitting at the seams and now
If things start splitting at the seams and now,
It's tumbling down
Hard.
Anything to make you smile
You are the ever-living ghost of what once was
I never want to hear you say
That you'd be better off
Or you liked it that way
And no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do
But someone
They should have warned you
When things start splitting at the seams and now
The whole thing's tumbling down
Things start splitting at the seams and now
If things start splitting at the seams and now,
It's tumbling down
Hard
The lyrics in Kristina Train's song "No One's Gonna Love You" are driven by a sense of fear and collapse. The first verse describes an experience in which everything has fallen apart and is seemingly beyond repair: "It's looking like a limb torn off / Or altogether just taken apart / We're reeling through an endless fall / We are the ever-living ghost of what once was." The singer conveys her hopeless feelings using metaphors to describe how everything seems to be disintegrating.
Yet, in the chorus, she reassures her significant other that nobody will ever love him/her more than she does, and she's ready to do anything to make him/her happy: "But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do / No one's gonna love you more than I do / And anything to make you smile / It is a better side of you to admire." She acknowledges the difficulties and hardships that come with relationships but is ready to work through them because of her love for her partner.
The second verse talks about the potential warning signs of a breakup or a failing relationship, and how those signs are ignored. The singer talks about how things start to split at the seams, and nobody seems to be paying attention until the whole thing comes crashing down: "But someone, they could have warned you / When things start splitting at the seams." The chorus is then repeated, with the singer reassuring her significant other that she will always love him/her more than anyone else.
Overall, the song is a poignant reminder of how fragile relationships can be and how important it is to hold onto the people we love, especially during the difficult times.
Line by Line Meaning
It's looking like a limb torn off
It seems like something has been violently taken away or lost, leaving a painful void.
Or altogether just taken apart
Perhaps it wasn't just one thing, but many things that have been dismantled, leaving nothing but fragments and confusion.
We're reeling through an endless fall
It feels like we're falling uncontrollably, unable to find our footing, and can't find a way to stop the descent.
We are the ever-living ghost of what once was
We are the remains of a past that is no longer alive but still haunts us; we can't seem to let go of it entirely.
But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
I love you with a depth that no one else can match, and I fear that if we lose what we have, you won't find that love again.
No one's gonna love you more than I do
I want you to know that my love for you is limitless and beyond compare.
And anything to make you smile
I want to do everything in my power to bring happiness to you and see you happy.
It is a better side of you to admire
When you smile, I see the best version of yourself, and that's what I want to cherish and appreciate.
But they should never take so long
I don't want to wait too long to see you smile again; I'm worried about how long it's taking to get there.
Just to be over then back to another one
I fear that once the cause of your sadness is gone, there will be another thing to replace it and make you unhappy again.
But someone, they could have warned you
I wish someone had prepared you or warned you about the pain that we're in now or could have helped prevent it.
When things start splitting at the seams and now the whole thing's tumbling down
I worry that our relationship is starting to come apart, and if we can't hold it together, everything we have built will fall apart with it.
Things start splitting at the seams and now
I can see that things are starting to fall apart, and it's making me anxious and scared.
If things start splitting at the seams and now, it's tumbling down hard
If we don't address the problems we're facing head-on, our relationship will become irreparable and will fall apart, hurting both of us deeply.
You are the ever-living ghost of what once was
You're like me in that you're holding on to something that's long gone and won't let it go; it continues to haunt us.
I never want to hear you say that you'd be better off or you liked it that way
I don't want to imagine a world where you're better off without me or where this pain and heartache are something you wanted or liked.
Writer(s): Creighton Barrett, Benjamin Bridwell, James Hampton
Contributed by Thomas R. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@Rulamah
no one..