| "Street Lights" | |
|---|---|
| Song byKanye West | |
| from the album808s and Heartbreak | |
| Released | November 24, 2008 (2008-11-24) |
| Recorded | 2008 |
| Studio |
|
| Genre | Pop |
| Length | 3:09 |
| Label | |
| Songwriters | |
| Producer |
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"Street Lights" (also called"Streetlights") is a song by American rapperKanye West from his fourth studio album,808s & Heartbreak (2008). The song features background vocals fromEsthero andTony Williams. It was produced by West and co-produced byMr Hudson. The producers co-wrote the song with Esthero and Williams. For the song, West was inspired by driving past street lights. Apoppiano ballad withindie pop elements, it featuresshoegazesynths. Lyrically, West references street lights passing by like memories and time.
"Street Lights" received generally positive reviews frommusic critics, who often praised the composition. Some were complimentary towards West's vocals, while other critics noted the song's emotional appeal. Retrospectively, this song has been universally acclaimed, being considered one of West's most emotional and underrated songs. An accompanyingmusic video premiered on June 29, 2009. In the video, West drives around on the search for a destination that he fails to reach. West performed the song live duringThe Yeezus Tour in 2013. He and theSunday Service Choir perform anacoustic rendition of it in his filmJesus Is King (2019). The song has been subject to cover versions byRuby Amanfu,Daniel Caesar, andStars.
The song was produced by West, with co-production from English musicianMr Hudson; the two wrote it alongside backing vocalistsEsthero andTony Williams.[1] The musician was involved with other808s & Heartbreak tracks, contributing a feature to "Paranoid" and co-writing "Say You Will".[1] Mr Hudson was on vacation in Paris when he received a phone call from West, who was drawn in by his charm. After the musician's work on the album, West signed him to hisrecord labelGOOD Music. Mr Hudson released his debut studio albumStraight No Chaser under the label in October 2009, with West contributing vocals on thesingle "Supernova".[2] Speaking withSlate in 2013, West explained that he took inspiration for "Street Lights" from "driving around watching these street light's [sic] passing". Continuing, West recalled having the realization that "each one was transitory" and "that's what life was". He clarified that he did not mean any sort of disrespect towards theBuddha, but humbly believed "right there I figured it out".[3]
On November 12, 2008, the song experienced aleak.[4] "Street Lights" was recorded during the three-week period that West worked on the entirety of808s & Heartbreak in 2008.[5] West has often used the word "light" or the plural version of it in his song titles, first doing so with the single "Flashing Lights" in 2007. He also pays reference to flashing lights on the song, rapping about being "flashed by the paparazzi". The inclusion of "Street Lights" on808s & Heartbreak in 2008 marked the second time West released a track with a version of the word in its title, while the lyrics include him directly mentioning street lights.[6] West continued the "light" theme with the inclusion of "All of the Lights" on his fifth studio albumMy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010); the lyrics also see him speak of street lights. Three songs with a version of the word in the title were released on West's seventh studio albumThe Life of Pablo in 2016: "Ultralight Beam", "Low Lights", "Highlights". As of February 2016, West has yet to comment on his usage of "light" and the plural version for song titling.[6]
Musically, "Street Lights" is apoppiano ballad,[7][8][9][10] with elements ofindie pop.[11] According toUncut, the song is set in thetime signature of6
8.[9] The song prominently containsshoegazesynths, while a guitar appears in the background.[9][12]Tom-tom drums are heavily featured, on which its sparsegroove relies.[10][13] The song includes slowkeyboardchords, played by frequent West collaboratorJeff Bhasker.[1][7][14] For the opening, piano is utilized.[13] Going along with the rest of the album,Auto-Tune is heavily deployed on West's voice throughout,[12][13] with his vocals havingdistortion added.[14][15][16] At certain points, a distorted vocal track succeeds West's voice and echoes him.[16] After the minute-and-a-half point of the song, lush layers of background vocals from Esthero and Williams come in,[1][7][10][17] who deliver harmonies.[13][15]
In the lyrics of the track, West refers to street lights passing by in a similar manner to memories and time.[7][17] Kanye also uses the lights as a metaphor for his sadness, alluding to the death of his mother Donda West.[6] The track opens with astanza from Kanye West: "Let me know / Do I still got time to grow / Things ain't always set in stone / That being known let me know / Let me".[13] West confesses that even though he knows his destination, he is "just not there" in the streets.[13] At the end of the track, West sings "Life's just not fair".[16]
On November 24, 2008, "Street Lights" was released as the eighth track on West's fourth studio album808s & Heartbreak.[18] The song was met with generally positive reviews frommusic critics, with many praising the composition. Scott Plagenhoef fromPitchfork pointed out the song's "relatively busy sounds" as being "among the sonic highlights" of the album, while also naming it one of the best songs.[19]Jody Rosen ofRolling Stone commented that the song features "a haze of distortion" floating over "tolling keyboard chords and a hammering beat".[14] Writing forThe A.V. Club,Nathan Rabin appreciated the song as "heartbreakingly delicate".[20]The Washington Post's Chris Richards characterized the song as a lot better than fellow album track "RoboCop", finding the former to be "wistful" and viewing West as a "beleagueredprotagonist" who attempts escaping "into the back seat of a cab only to arrive at another emotional dead end". He continued, comparing the distorted vocal track that retracts West's syllables on "Street Lights" to "a digital shadow", as well as listing the song among the tracks from808s & Heartbreak to download.[16]
Dave Heaton fromPopMatters stated the lyrics that have the most emotional impact on808s & Heartbreak are "sung the most straight", primarily noticing these on "Street Lights", going on to call the song "the comedown" and "a moment of mellow" after the album's previous three tracks. He further noticed the song is its "most precise and impressive channeling of the mood", expressing that the references to street lights passing evoke feelings of "a resolution of sorts" and observing West's progression from some of his "name-calling". Heaton stated the main part of the song is the music "being brilliantly odd" due to "a wavering keyboard sound that almost resembles the noisyfeedback of anexperimental rock band" being used emotionally in a lingeringmelancholy manner, with West enabling the keyboard fading into the background while also stopping "to shine a light on it". He analyzed that the keyboard usage takes the song tostill motion to "highlight the feeling" and noticed how "[l]ush" backing vocals run alongside the instrumentation, "absorbing" and complimenting the strangeness, thus leading to "Street Lights" being "tender as it [should] be". Concluding his review, Heaton opined that West does not appear "worked with musical clichés" when the song is compared to other ballads byhip hop artists, writing he puts "his own spin" on "the lonely-hearted ballad" form and includes a "depth of sound that generates a depth of feeling".[7]
Dan Cairns ofThe Sunday Times observed that West's "emotional candour" is highly personal, making listening to the song seemingly "almost voyeuristic".[21] The staff ofNME lauded the song over the emotion, calling it "an endearingly broken-sounding 'where am I in life?' cold-soul heel-scuffer".[22]IGN critic Alfred H. Leonard, III listed the song among the ones on808s & Heartbreak that are worthy of downloading.[23] A few reviews of the song were negative. ForSlant Magazine, Wilson McBee estimated that the song would likely be "nothing more than harmless balladry" if performed by either one of American singer-songwritersNe-Yo andThe-Dream, "but under West's awkward, wistful ownership" it turns out to be "not palatable".[24] Steve Jones was dismissive of the song atUSA Today; he selected it as the album's track that should be skipped.[25]
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On June 29, 2009, West shared amusic video for "Street Lights" via his blog.[26] It was directed and created by Spanish designer Javier Longobardo.[27] The video iscomputer animated and features West driving a car through a desertedmetropolis, searching for a destination that he never reaches.[26][28] The graphics of the music video uses polygon shapes, similar to the shapes used by thePlayStation console.[28] According to Tom Breihan ofPitchfork, the video looks similar to "one of thosepastel 80s beach-party T-shirts [having] come to computer-animated life".[26]
West performed the song during his show forVH1 in February 2009.[29] However, the performance was not originally broadcast on the network.[29] Instead, it was included as the eleventh performance on the DVD of West's secondlive albumVH1 Storytellers on January 5, 2010, being added as a bonus clip.[29][30][31] On October 19, 2013, West performed the track from a giant mountain duringThe Yeezus Tour's kickoff show atKey Arena inSeattle, Washington.[32] The track was performed for West's first concert inNew York City on the tour, which was at theBarclay's Center on November 19, 2013.[33] Four days later, West performed the song for a concert at the city'sMadison Square Garden on The Yeezus Tour, before he delivered a rant.[34] For West's two night concert of808s & Heartbreak in full at the 2015Hollywood Bowl in September, he performed the song as the eighth track of his set.[35][36] This marked West's first performance of the song since November 2013; he wore loose garments in white and off-white shades while performing.[36][37] West had backing from a small band and a medium-sized orchestra, and the theatre was covered withstop-sign red light for the song.[35][37]
"Street Lights" was part of the soundtrack for a season of Americanmedical drama television seriesGrey's Anatomy.[38] In 2016, West's former wifeKim Kardashian included the song on a playlist of her 28 favourite songs from him.[39] Make-up artistPat McGrath shared a promotional clip for her eye kit Dark Star 006 in 2017 as part of herIn The Mirror series, which included an appearance from Kardashian.[40] The 73 seconds long clip featured a stylized very-high resolution filter and soundtrack set to "Street Lights".[40][41]
In an interview for All Def Music in 2018, rapperJuice Wrld recalled singing the song as if he "had shit to be sad about" and classified West as "a time traveler".[42] He continued, asserting that West "went to damn near 2015 and came back with some sauce".[42] West released hisconcert filmJesus Is King simultaneously with his ninth studio albumof the same name on October 25, 2019, the former of which features him and hisgospel group theSunday Service Choir performing a stripped-downacoustic rendition of "Street Lights".[43][44][45] West sings in a worn-out quiet voice as he is accompanied by a piano and anorgan, and he dresses in a brown attire.[43][44][46] The camera slowly circles around him and the group during their performance in an underground church while dusk falls, with West using a broom for sweeping.[43][45][46]
AmericanR&B singerRuby Amanfu shared her cover version of "Street Lights" toSoundCloud on June 23, 2015. Amanfu toldRolling Stone that during the first night of her five-day period residing in a Tennessee log cabin, she discussed with her six-piece band how "we were going to flip" the song "on its head", with the singer setting out "to turn it into a waltz" while trying to avoid overthinking things.[47] This led to Amanfu and the band merely following their instincts; she recalled having "sang to candlelight only and we just went for it", recording three takes of the cover and ultimately using the last one. Amanfu explained that the original resonates with her due to serving as a reminder "of those moments in life when time can present itself as a curse instead of a blessing", later stating how she can "hope that those streetlights guide you to the destination you're hoping for".[47] Asoulful rendition, the cover replaces the original's synths with sparse piano.[48] A cover version of "Street Lights" was released by fellow R&B singerDaniel Caesar under the title of "Streetcar" on his second EPPilgrim's Paradise on November 12, 2015. The first half of the cover is reliant on piano that accompanies Daniel Caesar's voice, before drums come in and a guitar is featured alongside hisfalsetto.[49]
On February 17, 2016, Canadian indie pop bandStars posted achamber pop cover version to SoundCloud with the same title as the original.[11][50] In apress release regarding their cover, frontmanTorquil Campbell clarified that the subjects of "[n]ighttime, street lights, isolation, despair, [and] the romance of being alone" are often sung about by the band, "so tackling Kanye West's beautiful evocation of all these things seemed natural".[11] He further called it West's "most starsy song", as well as assuming that "sad Kanye is everyone's favorite Kanye".[11] Stars posted a note about the cover to SoundCloud in reference to West: "we do a slightly better version of streetlights than he does. and we believe women. ?#?outboastkanye? ?#?billcosbynotinnocent?."[50] The cover replaces the original's synths with an entirely new piano melody.[51]
Information taken from808s & Heartbreak liner notes.[1]
Recording
Personnel
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