According to the press release, West and McCartney began brainstorming together in 2014 in a “small bungalow in Los Angeles,” though it’s safe to say the bungalow probably wasn’t that small. The release continues, “The process that would result in ‘Only One’ began with a simple brainstorming session between the two: With McCartney improvising on the keyboards and Kanye vocally sketching and shaping ideas in a stream-of-consciousness riff.”
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Whatever sketching and shaping and riffing went down in that tiny little house,
it worked. The song is searing, soulful, and heartbreaking. There’s just the right amount of auto-tune, a lá West’s 2008 album “808s and Heartbreak,” and those dark, slightly dissonant chords that made his album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” so powerful.
There’s also a tenderness to the song that we haven’t heard before from West. It’s a simple track; the production is stripped pretty bare, supporting the poignant lyrics. From Donda West’s vantage, it includes lines like “I know you’re happy, cause I can see it/ So tell the voice inside your head to believe it/ I talked to God about you, he said he sent you an angel/ And look at all that he gave you.”
The song ends with a plea, “Tell Nori about me.” In the off-chance that you make it that far into the song without weeping into your take-out (who cooks on New Year’s Day?), that last line will probably do it.
If “Only One” is any indication of what marriage and fatherhood have done to Yeezy, Kim deserves a thank you card.
Source : boston.com
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