You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
Leanne Lahavas is a singer and songwriter from London.
She's been nominated for a Grammy and a Brit Award, and in 2020, she released her third album.
In this episode, she breaks down her song, Can't Fight,
and traces its evolution, along with her own evolution, over several years.
My name is Leanne Lahavas.
The idea first came into my head about seven or eight years ago.
My boyfriend at the time was a bass player and he was showing me all these videos of different bass players that he liked and Victor Wootman came up and this song he had called Me and My Bass Guitar.
It's just the most amazing use of the bass.
So basically my boyfriend was teaching me a version of it that could be played on guitar.
So I was having loads of fun like playing the guitar in a new way.
Then yeah I remember just sitting alone
as I do in my house with a cup of tea and I just started playing a nice chord that I liked but I had the muscle memory from learning this Victor Wooten piece.
So then a sort of hammer-on percussive riff started happening with the chord that I liked.
When I write a guitar part,
it can't be anything that doesn't challenge me
because I like feeling that challenge when I'm singing and playing.
It kind of evokes writing in me.