Lyrics

Señorita Pt. 2 - Andrew

Shawn and Camila walked back into the studio, hand-in-hand and smiling at each other. Camila's eyes were puffy, but her face was calm, Shawn looked relieved but still a bit nervous.

I looked over at Roger, Camila's manager and his face mirrored my own; relief tinged with a bit of confusion. This could become interesting. I smiled as Shawn looked over at me for reassurance, then he and Camila went up to Benny Blanco and they started talking about the session, both brimming with ideas about the song and the direction.

I shouldn't have doubted them, they were both consummate professionals the whole day. After a couple of shaky vocal exercises, they headed into separate booths and started playing with the melodies, the lyrics.

Camila's notes were much higher than she would normally go, I figured that was due to the intense emotional storm she seemed to be experiencing, from the look of her puffy eyes. Shawn's vocals, although much better exercised given his current touring, were nervous and a bit reserved.

In the end, it was Benny who figured it out and knew what to do to get the best out of them.
"Right you two, enough. I'm putting you in together. You may have separate vocal ranges and separate verses but we're going to nail this chorus together." Then he shoved them playfully into a booth together. It was a small space and given the current energy between them, I could only imagine the tension simmering in that booth. From where the rest of us were standing, we could still see them, but they couldn't see us. It was the perfect solution.

"Right, how about you start by singing I Know What You Did Last Summer a couple of times over?" He said over the sound system. They looked confused but nodded in agreement before they started singing the words to their first song.

The first time Shawn forgot his lines during the bridge, Camila was practically on the floor laughing at him. He looked dumbstruck; he probably hadn't heard her laugh for a long time. After a couple of rounds, their voices were stronger, finding each other's range better.

"Ok good, let's go for the first few lines of Señorita, at a low range please." Benny instructed.
They both nodded, the tension seeming to dissipate a bit as they looked happily at each other, then down at the record sheet.

I love it when you call me Señorita
I wish I could pretend I didn't need ya
But every touch is ooh la la la
It's true, la la la
Ooh, I should be running
Ooh, you keep me coming for you

They finished softly, having drifted even closer to one another in the tiny booth, their eyes locked onto one another. I had goose bumps all over and when I looked over at Roger, Sinu and the rest of the team, they also looked visibly affected by these two beautiful people and their singing.

I started clapping slowly, Roger and the team joined in. Benny looked over and gave me a grateful nod. When Camila and Shawn heard, they tore their eyes from each other and smiled shyly at the sound, they couldn't see us, but the message was clear, "Hell yeah!" I shouted in encouragement. Camila's responding laughter made Shawn loosen up considerably.

"Right, let's get the show on the road Senor and Señorita!" Benny ramped up the excitement.
The rest of the day was a haze of sounds, lyrics and excitement. We'd ordered sushi into the studio and the song took on great form, with Camila and Shawn getting progressively better at their lines throughout. There was still work to be done on the lyrics but the lines we got recorded were perfect and I could see both artists feeling more at ease with each other during the process.

At the end of the day, Benny was talking to them about when they could next come in to studio to work on the rest, including some new lines for Shawn's verse when I had to step in, "You've got a bunch of shoots in Toronto the rest of the week and..." Shawn stopped me, knowing that this was going to be difficult if we lost momentum.
"Ok, it's ok. I'll run through some new verses with Jack when I'm in Toronto, I'm seeing him at The Raptors game this week." He said confidently
"Yes! Jack's great with these sorts of things..." Benny nodded in agreement. "and I know, Cashmere Cat's in town, I want to run a couple of rifts past him, if you don't mind?" he asked them both. Camila squealed in excitement.
"Yaaas!" she sang, "I love Magnus' work, can I come with you?" She was positively glowing at this point. Benny laughed and agreed.

"Amazing, so we have lift off?" I asked, trying to ascertain whether all this juggling of schedules and planning was going to result in an actual record, or whether the two of them would get cold feet and pull out at the last minute.

Shawn looked calmly down at Camila, giving her the space to decide. She didn't break his eye contact, just said boldly, "We have lift off." Shawn's responding grin made the knot in my stomach disappear. These two were going to make history together.