As we approach a Summer where we can at last contemplate all being in a room together listening to music without looking at a sea of masks, all think about hugging strangers and all dream about walking hand in hand on a beach with the person we love, it seems we need an anthem and David D’Alessio has provided us with a song that has quite simply become my go to feel-good song at the moment. If all of that pent up excitement for a return to normality could be bottled up in a song, then this artist has done just that with a song that fills me with the same joy that the classic Don Henley song ‘Boys of Summer’ did all those years ago.
After David’s last contemplative and introspective EP ‘This Far Apart’, the last thing I honestly expected from the artist was this song and yet it somehow feels like he’s managed to completely sense the feelings that we’ve all had during the last few years; he has understood our anxieties during the pandemic and now he completely understands the euphoria and joy of looking forward instead of backwards. The production encapsulates everything you’d want from a Summer anthem; its Bryan Adams, Don Henley and the Beach Boys thrown in a shaker and mixed up to provide us with a cocktail of positivity.
David was born and raised in Hawaii and lived for many years in Arizona, where he was once hailed as the “Jason Mraz of the Southwest”; all of these influences feel strong in this release which would sit happily blasting out of a boom box on a beach or at a Summer Country music festival. The lyrics read like a checklist of everything you’d want from the perfect Summer but underlying that is a wonderful love song about appreciating what’s right here, right now. It says look around and enjoy what is under your nose, kiss the ones you love, play on the beach with your children, snap those selfies, drink a cold beer but most importantly give thanks that we’ve waited so long to enjoy something that we lost, that we all took for granted but now have back. In short, enjoy the simple things. There’s no mention of possessions, just experiences because if the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that people and experiences are what make us human, it’s touching and interacting and smiling and loving that make us happiest so let’s grab this Summer, pull it in and hold it in our hearts. The feeling of endless Summer is what we all need and David’s right….there’s ‘Nowhere Else’ any of us would rather be.
David says of the song:
”I feel like ‘Nowhere Else I Wanna Be’ is the natural counterweight and the perfect follow up to the EP. Sometimes, it’s important to reflect on things in your life, but other times, you just want to forget it and be free. This song is my way of saying, hey, I can have fun too! I wrote it first on acoustic guitar and thought it might be an acoustic track. Then I realised, no, we’ve been waiting for this release from the pandemic and a COVID-free summer for a long time- so let’s chant. Let’s celebrate”
The song was born when David was driving back from the Jersey shore on a late Summer day in September 2021 with his wife and seven-year-old daughter when a melody that had long been in his mind suddenly floated into his head. Feeling sunburn and sunspent, with his feet on the dash as his wife was driving, and with the wind in his hair, he started to reflect on the lockdown and the freedom everyone craved and what would be the things that give that forever summer feeling. From there the song almost wrote itself and it was easy to write a song about losing the restrictions the pandemic brought with it and embracing life and the simple things that make us want to smile; the things we’ve been dreaming of for so long. That possibility of being in that Summer feeling forever, that need to tap into our inner energy and be thankful.
David says of his music:
“Music and I are in a long term relationship that I’m never gonna get out of. ‘Nowhere Else I Wanna Be’ makes me feel that I still have so much to explore as a songwriter and artist. It makes me feel free, not only in the kid-like sense of never leaving the beach in my mind, but also as an artist not attached to any particular sound. The joy of creation for me is like Elsa singing ‘Into The Unknown’ in Frozen 2. That’s a comparative reference only a Dad with a seven-year-old daughter would make!”
For me David D’Alessio is everything you want your favourite artist to be. He might not feel that he’s locked into any particular genre and that’s great because it’s all essentially pop, whether it’s Indie, Country, Blues or Soul, and we want our artists to be dipping into all of those influences but the one thing that David is locked into is that ability to tap into the myriad of emotions that live inside us and make us tick. Right now, everyone is feeling the joy and hope of a Summer where we can all be together at last and frankly he’s right; there’s ‘Nowhere Else (we) Wanna Be’.
