JP Saxe and Julia Michaels If The World Was Ending was one of our favourite tracks to be released last year. We interviewed JP about the track when it was released and just loved it. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful and is a song that’s extremely hard to get out of your head once you’ve heard it.
The story of how the song came to be is equally as beautiful and cute. If you are sucker for a good love story then read on.
It’s a story of coincidences, fate and a whole lot of chemistry. ( Would make a great Netflix movie actually.)
JP was on a road trip with a friend and they were discussing their favourite songwriters, he mentioned how Julia Micheals was his. The two had never met or talked before, it was purely JP appreciating Julia for the talented singer/songwriter that she is.
Julia at the exact same moment chose to mention in a story on her Instagram just how talented she found JP, she’d basically been listening to his track 25 in Barcelona on repeat for hours after a friend had recommended it to her. She tagged JP in the post on her story as she wanted to share with the world just how great it was.
JP responded to the story, the pair chatted back and forth for a few weeks before exchanging numbers with JP inviting Julia to grab a coffee with him. Then she ghosted him… Or so he says!
Julia sees it a little differently, she says it was Father’s Day the first time he asked, then they both randomly ended up in New York together at the same time ( Erm fate?) but the timing was all off as Julia was there promoting her album, and JP asked if she wanted to hang out the day it was released.
Eventually, though fate gave them a break and they met up on July 20th. JP arrived first at the studio, they hugged a little bit too long then is considered polite for complete strangers… Julia maintains she just likes to hug and he was the lucky recipient that day.
Although she did text her manager during the day they spent together saying she was in love.
Julia had brought Ben, a sound engineer with her to help with their session, Both Ben and JP hit it off. Julia has worked with Ben for five years and he knows her really well and he could see the spark between the two of them.
They made tea and sat talking about everything, from their parents, to where they grew up and about earth quakes.
For three hours they sat around the piano, the entire session recorded by Ben, and JP had written one lyric he’d been saving, “If the world was ending you’d come over right?”
The now infamous lyric had been saved as a voice note on JP’s phone two weeks before the session, with the title “Save for Julia” as he knew he just had to show it to her during their session.
Julia sat next to him at the Piano, conversation switching between lighthearted and serious as the song came to life from that lyric. Julia came up with “there wouldn’t be a reason why, would even have to say goodbye.” It gave JP full-body chills.
The pair came up with so many great ideas that they had to cut a lot of them otherwise the song would have been about six minutes long. Originally the song was meant to be just for JP, but he couldn’t get the timings right so Julia helped him out by singing a few takes. He really struggled with the last line of the second verse that she sings, and then she sang and he freaked out because it was so good and he knew it had to stay like that.
When Julia came out of the booth after recording her vocals, she listened to JP recording a few takes, she got ready to leave to go meet a friend, JP planned to stay awhile and perfect the song. He asked Julia what she was going to do once she left, she told him and he invited himself along. JP spent a few more hours with Ben playing around with the track and the vocals.
He later showed up at the bar Julia was at with her friends with Ben in tow. The next day the couple went out.
And now eight months later from that fateful meeting both JP and Julia are very much in love and have released this unforgettable song on the world and we adore them both for it.
Let us know if you love the story of how JP and Julia got together as much as the song at @CelebMix!
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