I’ve had a favorite songwriter for a very long time now. She’s Diane Warren. I think she’s slightly strange, now that I follow her on social media and get to find out who she is (a little). However, it doesn’t take anything away from her ability to write really great songs.
Most recently, I’ve found a new song that was written by her, which had just gotten released a few weeks ago. It’s “Stand Up For Something”, performed by R&B singer Andra Day and featuring rapper (turned actor, so I thought he wasn’t rapping anymore) Common. Common even co-wrote the track.
Just as much as the title suggests, the song is really about something. It has a message and is part of the soundtrack for the movie “Marshall”, which is a movie about the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall. The movie has just been released, a few weeks ago, just like the single.
The motivational track has, most definitely, received the full support from the artists involved. All of them have spoken out about feeling thankful to be involved in such an inspiring, important track. They are clearly hoping it’s all for something.
The song actually starts out with nothing more than a beat and Andra Day’s vocal before breaking out in retro soul when the chorus kicks in. Andra’s vocal is light, but with the right emotion to it. Common drops his verse, casually, about midway through the track. It’s an interesting mix of a slower beat then the pace of the lyrics might imply, but it all works.
Just around the time of release of the song, a children’s choir actually went viral with their version of Andra’s biggest hit, “Rise Up”, so enough empowerment seemed to be going around and an extreme honor found its way back to Andra. She received a National Arts Award and Michelle Obama presented it to her via video, because Andra does #standupforsomething.
