Blue Lights

"Blue Lights" is the lead single and eighth track off Jorja Smith's debut studio album, Lost &amp; Found.

What inspired Jorja to write this song?
''When I wrote “Blue Lights,” I took a break from doing my media course work. I was looking at post-colonialism in grime music. A video I was watching was Dizzee Rascal’s “Sirens.” I was inspired to write this song. I was listening to some beat in my room, and I found this one, called “Jamie Keys” produced by Joyce. That’s who produced “Blue Lights.” I just started free styling it. Also I wrote this song because I was talking to loads of young kids. Part of my coursework was to do a little documentary, and I was looking at police versus grime music. I just went around interviewing kids at school asking them what they thought of the police. These little boys, mostly it was black kids that I was interviewing, people of color. Well everyone, but that was the main focus.''

''These 11-year-olds, I was like, “Oh, what do you think of the police?” They were like, “Fuck the police! I hate them.” And I was like, “What have you done?” “Nothing, but I hate them,” And I was like, “It’s sad,” you know?It’s sad because we’re kind of … It’s instilled in us to have, well fear the police. You know? That’s what I was writing the song about. And it was about walking around with this guilty conscience, even though you haven’t done anything wrong.''

Who inspired this song?
''It was based on two of my friends. One of them left their bag at my house, and I’m really nosey. I found their bag, and I picked it up, and it was really light. I was like, “What the hell has he got in this bag, like this? Why’s he got this pouch and there’s nothing in there?” I opened it, there was a knife in there. I pulled out this knife. It was a flicky one, and I got it out as well. I was like, “Fuck.” I actually had to put it back. “I don’t want to tell my dad, I don’t want to tell anyone about this knife.” Then I put it back in the bag.''

''Gave him his bag back and never told him. Then I wrote this song, because I was just imagining if he did something. He’s the tall black shadow. I’m writing this song in perspective of his friend, who I was. His character was a person that wouldn’t have done anything, because they’re such good friends.''

''I was just imagining if, the tall black shadow did do something, and he was asking his friend like, “Can you cover up what I’ve done? You’ve got my back in all of this?” That’s how I wrote the story.''

Jorja describes the tone of the song:
''I was trying to give some hope saying, “Don’t run, don’t you run when you hear the sirens coming.” Then it flips at the end because I’m saying, “You better run now because the sirens are coming for you.” I feel like the song’s a bit of a circle, and that’s like life. Everything just repeating, everything’s just going in a circle.''