Boy meets girl; boy already has a girlfriend. Romantic friction and emotional turmoil ensures. This is the simple but effective premise of “Somebody That Loves You”, the result of a collaboration between British futuristic electro-soul duo HONNE (James and Andy) and London singer-songwriter Izzy Bizu (Isobel Beardshaw) that began via a chance encounter on Twitter.
The track is mostly sung from the girl’s perspective, with Izzy Bisu’s jazz-inflected vocals fleshing out the temptations of lust/desire against HONNE’s signature pulsing synths. She is joined by Andy on the chorus, where they both evoke the anguished conflict of interest between their ids and superegos:
‘Don't touch me
Boy I want you
Not allowed to
You have someone that loves you
I'm waiting
And I'm patient
I'm deluded
You have someone that loves you’
Lyrics: Genius
The accompanying music video features a bittersweet romantic encounter between a young Caucasian man and a Japanese girl in a Japanese city (presumably Tokyo) – this is a perhaps a visual nod to HONNE’s Japanese-inspired name (HONNE is derived from the Japanese word ‘本音’, which means "real intention"). If their ‘real intention’ is to make down-tempo pop melodies with emotionally intelligent portraits of modern love, they have certainly succeeded.
