Our readers selected Via Audio’s “Babies” as the number one song of 2010, which peaked our curiosity. We wanted to know more about the song, and we figured you might, too, so here’s Tom Deis from Via Audio’s story behind this song…

The demo for Babies was born in the summer of 2007 after I had been listening to plenty of Justin Timberlake.  My brain suddenly wanted to make something really dancey.  The whole chorus section of the song came to me in a waking vision… lyrics, bass line, key, everything all at once.  It was improvised by my subconscious.  I then wrote the verses and bridge section in a way that I thought made sense with the Chorus. The lyrics are written sort of from a perspective that’s a bit estranged from the whole world of hip language in main stream pop music, which makes sense, because I do think of myself as a bit of a stranger to modern mainstream pop music.  I wanted to fuse the feeling of being a stranger and feeling joyful… sort of like making a new friend.

When Via Audio started playing it live, it took on a new life, a little bit less like Justin Timberlake, more like Via Audio.  David had the idea of putting a THX-esque synth intro on the front and we made the groove a little faster for more dance-ability.  We all sing harmonies on it, which is challenging and fun.  We often end the show with Babies… which happens to end with a harmonized acapella “I want to make babies with you”.  I believe that’s a cool way to end a show, on a really positive note, spreading the love.

The recording took on some more retro qualities largely thanks to our producer, Jim Eno.  The instruments all have this 70s-80s Michael Jackson thing going, which makes the song even more of a stranger in it’s own land of modern pop music.  Perhaps the thing I enjoy most about this song is that when we play it, our tour-mates will often join us on stage and play a percussion instrument or just dance.  That always makes me happy.

Babies