Tom Odell Interview - A Wonderful Life Album, Another Love

Since releasing his debut album, Long Way Down, in 2013 at the age of 22, singer/songwriter Tom Odell has been a best-selling and acclaimed artist in the United Kingdom, in Europe, and in other countries. Notably, his first album reached #1 in the U.K., and he has since released six albums and had several hit singles.

Odell is known for his strong, passionate lead vocals, his skillful piano playing, and his uniquely personal songs. Over the past decade, he has created a large body of work that includes his worldwide hit “Another Love,” and his hits “Grow Old With Me,” “Real Love” and “Black Friday.”

Now in 2025, Odell has just released his latest album, A Wonderful Life (on the independent UROK label). Recorded mostly live at a studio in London, this album is an impressive collection of emotional, heartfelt songs, some which are deeply personal.

Two key songs on the album are “Don’t Cry, Put Your Head On My Shoulder” and “Don’t Let Me Go.” The first is a compassionate song about being there for a friend, and it has a stirring melody and hook. The second song, “Don’t Let Me Go,” starts softly and builds to a powerful. Other highlights include the reflective “Why Do I Always Want The Things I Can’t Have,” the title cut “Wonderful Life,” and the uptempo song, “Can We Just Go Home Now.”

Odell grew up in West Sussex, England, and he also spent part of his childhood living in New Zealand. During his school years, he learned to play piano, write songs, and develop his singing voice. He studied at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music and he played in a band, before deciding to become a solo singer/songwriter.

It was in 2012 that Odell signed with Columbia Records and released his debut EP, Songs from Another Love. This EP contained his song “Another Love,” which became a Top 10 hit in the U.K. and was featured on his first album, Long Way Down. This album also contained his heartfelt song “Grow Old With Me,” which has become a fan favorite and part of his live show.

Then in 2016, Odell released his second album Wrong Crowd, which had the chart single “Magnetised.” This was followed by his third album, Jubilee Road, that included the soaring, emotional song “If You Wanna Love Somebody” and the duet song he sang with Alice Merton, “Half as Good as You.”

Here’s the video of Tom Webb’s song “Don’t Cry, Put Your Head
On My Shoulder.”

In 2021, Odell released his fourth album, Monsters, which was his final album with Columbia Records. He then decided to pursue a more independent path, releasing his music on UROK Records. This gave him the freedom to explore a wider range of music styles and sounds, and to release albums on his own schedule.

This new independence led to the release of his album Best Day of My Life in 2022, which was a stripped-down work that featured just Odell’s vocals and piano playing. Then in 2024, Odell returned with his album Black Friday, which had the hit single, “Black Friday.”

In the midst of releasing his Best Day of My Life and Black Friday albums, Odell’s career received a huge boost when his first single, “Another Love,” became popular for the second time. This song received massive exposure on TikTok when it was used in many video clips. It also took on symbolic meaning as a protest anthem and was used in videos related to the Ukraine/Russia war. As a result, “Another Love” became Odell’s most popular song and reestablished him as a major artist. He is now set to launch a major headline tour of arenas in the U.K. and Europe.

We are pleased to do this new Q&A interview with Tom Odell. He discusses the making of his new album A Wonderful Life, his songwriting, and how “Another Love” became his most popular song.

DK: In the past few years you’ve had success with your album’s Best Day of My Life and Black Friday. Can you talk about making those albums?

Tom Odell: Best Day of My Life was an album I made, and it was my first independent album. I wanted to challenge myself to making a record purely with the piano and my voice. So I set out the task of writing and recording it with that strict limitation. Nothing that you hear on the album is coming from anything other than my voice and the piano. That was an exciting discovery, because I realized how vital limitation is to any artistic project, and whether you’ve consciously imposed it on yourself or it’s been imposed by the world around you. I realized that it breathes vitality and identity into my work. I’m really proud of that record—it felt like I was ripping some shackles that I had been in for a while in terms of creativity. I felt inspired and the songs flowed out of me.

Here’s the video of Tom Odell’s song, “Don’t Let Me Go.”

Then about 10 months later, I was already a quarter the way through Black Friday, and that album felt like a continuation of Best Day of My Life. I had been on the road, and I bought a couple of nice acoustic guitars and I was playing them a lot. Then we were recording the songs on my acoustic in my studio while I was sitting on the sofa, and the album kind of created itself around these recordings. That was another record made in my studio which I’ve had for five years. I really enjoy working there now.

DK: In recent years your song, “Another Love,” has grown in popularity and it’s now your biggest song. How did you originally write the song, and how it has grown in popularity?

Odell: The funny thing about that song is that it was written in three different phases. The first was when I was in Brighton in England, and I was living in this little bed-sit and I was going to a music college up the road. I was also spending much of my time playing at open mics in the evening in bars and pubs around Brighton. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was writing and it was like a weird time…pretty lonely, and doing a lot of writing songs and playing. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and the idea for that riff came to me, which is the piano motif that’s the basis for the song.

But I definitely didn’t finish it that night. I ran out of money and I moved back in with my parents for a year and I converted my childhood bedroom into this makeshift studio and finished the song there. And that was after going for a walk. It was springtime in England and there were all these daffodils over the grass and, and that’s where the line, “I brought you daffodils on a pretty string, but they won’t flower like they did last spring.” That was the first line that sparked the song. Then I wrote the rest of it pretty quickly off that.

It was one of those crazy things where the song came out and it did pretty good in Europe. It started my career and gave me a touring career. But it was only three years ago, which was nine years after it came out, that it exploded. Now it’s done 3.2 billion streams or something insane like that. It’s a weird thing but it’s so beautiful, and I have so much gratitude about it because it’s given me an incredible career and it’s sustained me to be able to write seven albums worth of other songs. It’s an amazing thing.

Here’s the video of Tom Odell’s hit, “Another Love.”

DK: I like your new album, A Wonderful Life, which you’ve just released. Can you talk about the making of this album?

Odell: We’d been touring, and I was doing a lot of writing on the road. I keep these notebooks, and they’re like half diary entries, half lyric books, and everyday I chip away at the songs. Eventually, I had 19 or 20 songs, and it was just me the band that I play with live. I was feeling so connected to them, musically speaking, and I felt this urge to just go in and do a real, traditional kind of live recording. Track it as live as possible. So we went to a famous studio in London, and we tracked it live or almost live; there’s bits we overdubbed. And I’m really proud of it—it’s got this wonderful sense of discovery to it, it’s a little fragile in places, and it was good fun to record.

To some extent, I guess the lyrics are the thing that I care about almost the most. I’m really proud of these words…they’re sort of terrifyingly honest in places, and it took some courage to put some of them out. I guess there’s a level of discomfort I’ve had with sharing some of them, but I’m fond of them, and it’s been a joy to play some of them live.

DK: On your new album, I like “Don’t Cry, Put Your Head On My Shoulder.” It’s a great song. Can you talk about writing that one?

Odell: It was my guitarist Max (Clilverd) and I…we were in Budapest and we were hanging out, and we had the idea for that song, and the lyric came afterwards. The seed of the lyric was there, and then the rest of it was chipped away over time. I think it’s a song about being compassionate, and one of the hardest things to do is sit with people’s problems and your friends’ problems, and not try and solve them, you know. My way of wanting to help is somehow changing something. But sometimes it’s just about being there for your mates. And I guess there’s so many of my songs where it’s me trying to figure something out, and I feel like that is definitely what I was doing.

DK: Another song I like is your single, “Don’t Let Me Go.” Can you talk about writing that song?

Here’s the video of Tom Odell’s song, “Ugly.”

Odell: That song was like…we’re all living through this strange era where living in today’s world feels so different than 10 years ago. I think extraordinary, tragic things are happening around the world. And through our phones and sharing, we’re finding out about them and engaging with them in a completely unique way that has never happened before. So the whole thing is kind of existential to me. I think it feels so strange to live in today’s world, and sometimes you have to be completely nuts not to feel some level of anxiety. Because it does feel like the world is suddenly so much closer and things that used to feel so far away are right there in our hands. And it feels like there are so many crazy events going on every single day, and so much of what I think of as normal is no longer there. So this song is a reaction to that…it’s a very interesting time.

DK: On your new album, besides the songs we’ve discussed, what are your favorite songs?

Odell: I love them all…I’m proud of them all. There’s a song called “Strange House,” which is pretty low-keyed. I remember the day I wrote that song, I was on my own in this hotel in France, and I felt very fragile. And rather than burying my head in the sand, I wrote about it. That song feels very tender to me, and I came up with the line, “There’s too much hurting in this world for me to smile today.” It can be hard sometimes to encapsulate how you feel, but I feel that line did it pretty well.

Also, there’s more light to some of the records. There’s a well-written song called “Can Old Lovers Ever Just Be Friends” that was a lot of fun. It’s definitely a lighter emotion, and probably for older people a bit more relatable, and I enjoy writing songs like that. And there’s the song, “The End of Suffering.” I’m interested in spirituality—it’s been a big part of my life, and “The End of Suffering” is a nod to that.

DK: I want to ask you about your live show and tour. You’re in the middle of a U.S. tour, and then you’ll be headlining arena shows in Europe and the U.K. Can you talk about your live show, and the difference between playing smaller venues in the U.S. and arena shows in the U.K. and Europe?

Odell: Maybe there’s a discrepancy in the venue sizes we play, but I really like playing the large and smaller venues. I love coming to America and touring. What I think is unique here is the passion for grassroots music venues for bandy music. There’s something about this country that is great and magical, being a touring musician. Then I’m excited to start the arena tour in the U.K. and Europe. I’d never dreamed in playing in front of that many people. I’m sure it’s not going to be forever, but I’m thrilled to do it now and sing my songs in front of all these people. It’s amazing.