Format Digital download Genre Folktronica
synthpop Label Polydor | Recorded 2009 Length 4:11 | |
Released 8 August 2010 (2010-08-08) | ||
"The Writer" is a song by English singer and songwriter Ellie Goulding from her debut album, Lights (2010). It was released as the album's fourth and final (not including the Bright Lights re-release) single on 8 August 2010.
Contents
Background
Goulding told Sky Songs that "The Writer" is "the most personal and emotional song I've written yet", adding, "It's about how you'd do anything and change absolutely everything about yourself if necessary, just to be noticed by this one person."
Critical reception
The Observer's Polly Vernon named "The Writer" the "love song of the summer" and called it "raw, eloquent, generally gorgeous", while describing Goulding's voice as "ghostly sweet, saved from sickliness by guttural Björk-ish quirks." OddOne of Unreality Shout felt that "[n]ot once has she sounded more warming than in this beautifully written love song of devotion to a lover", but noted that "being her first ballad, she does fall at some hurdles, like the middle 8: whilst Ellie's breathy vocals may appear to bridge the emotion between the two final choruses, it actually does feel a bit like she's gone back to her colder self, not making the emotion clearly defined despite the very comforting lyrics."
Ryan Love of Digital Spy gave the track three out of five stars and wrote that "Starsmith's typically twinkly production allows those vocals to shine through as she urges a potential boyfriend to help her become just the right kinda gal for him—and the overall effect is as sweet and pretty as a pink frosted cupcake." Michael Cragg of musicOMH compared the song to Dido "with a more four-to-the-floor backing." Pitchfork Media's Stephen Troussé, however, referred negatively to it as "a big bluster of a song, with a chorus where the spectre of the Cranberries' Dolores O'Riordan is all too vivid, whose future success could be Goulding's undoing."
Commercial performance
"The Writer" debuted at number 101 on the UK Singles Chart for the week ending 24 July 2010, entering the top 100 at number sixty-eight the following week. In its fifth week on the chart, the single peaked at number nineteen with 12,446 copies sold.
Music video
The music video for "The Writer" was directed by Chris Cottam and filmed at Happisburgh Lighthouse in Happisburgh, Norfolk in June 2010. It was uploaded onto Goulding's official YouTube channel on 9 July 2010. The video shows Goulding walking around a field and exploring Happisburgh Lighthouse. It also includes in-studio sequences of her in front of a bright screen, giving the impression that she is in front of the actual light of the lighthouse.
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Lights.