Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Adele · S1 E5
West Norwood
The council flat in South London where Adele grows up. The neighbourhood is in every lyric she writes, even when she stops living there.
West Norwood, South London. A girl walks the same streets every day after school, past the cemetery, past the chicken shops, past the market stalls, absorbing every accent and every argument she overhears, storing it all somewhere she doesn't have a name for yet.
Adele, "One and Only" (live at the Royal Albert Hall, 2011). A soaring declaration of devotion co-written with Dan Wilson. Adele described it as the first happy song she ever wrote, about a man she had loved for years who was with someone else. The gospel arrangement, with church organ and a full choir, turns a private confession into something enormous.
One and Only
Co-written with Dan Wilson (who also wrote "Someone Like You"), "One and Only" is the only original on 21 that is not about the same ex-boyfriend who inspired the rest of the album. Adele wrote it about a man she had loved quietly for years. She told Songwriter Universe in 2011 that she could still see herself marrying him. The arrangement starts almost as a whisper, with just Adele and a piano, before building through church organ and a gospel choir into the biggest vocal performance on the album. She doesn't unleash the full power until the final chorus, making the release feel earned.
The Neighbourhood
West Norwood sits between Brixton and Crystal Palace in the London Borough of Lambeth. Terraced houses, fried chicken shops, a Victorian cemetery, and a bus route that connects to everywhere in South London. Adele and Penny settle here when Adele is about nine, and it becomes the most important square mile in her life. The streets she walks every day will become the subject of the first song she ever writes.
Sources
Adele, The Observer, January 2008
TAP TO REVEAL: What song did Adele write in ten minutes after an argument with her mother?
“I played it to her as a protest song and said this is why I'm staying.”
— Adele
What is the Victorian landmark in West Norwood that Adele walked past every day as a teenager?
Best for Last, Adele (2008)
From 19 (2008). One of the first songs Adele wrote, during the West Norwood period that produced "Hometown Glory." Over a swinging, jazz-inflected arrangement, she sings about someone who's been in front of her all along. A teenager discovering she has something to say.
Best for Last, Adele (2008)
Read the lyrics while you listen. This is teenage Adele, writing in her West Norwood bedroom, already sounding like she's lived three lives. The confidence in the vocal is startling for someone who wasn't old enough to vote when she recorded it.
The voice is there and the neighborhood is giving her stories. But she needs an instrument. Next episode: a gift from Penny, a bedroom, an internet connection, and the first chords of a career.
0 XP earned this session