| Drift Away | |
| Cover: | Sons of Zion - Drift Away.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Sons of Zion |
| Album: | Vantage Point |
| Genre: | Pop |
| Length: | 3:00 |
| Label: | Sons of Zion, Sony Music Entertainment New Zealand |
| Prev Title: | Is That Enough |
| Prev Year: | 2017 |
| Next Title: | So Bright |
| Next Year: | 2018 |
"Drift Away" is a song by New Zealand band Sons of Zion, released as a single in March 2018. The song was a hit in New Zealand, becoming double platinum certified and was nominated for the Single of the Year at the New Zealand Music Awards. In 2019, the band re-recorded the song in Māori as "Pōtere Ana / Drift Away", which was included on the compilation album Waiata / Anthems.
Sons of Zion's bassist Matt Sadgrove created the song's initial demo in 30 minutes, recording it as a voice memo.[1] The song was inspired by the imagery of film Inception (2010), specifically the scene where Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, mourns the death of his wife on a beach.[2] Sadgrove wrote the song as a simple, sad song, noting that it had a vibe of a Tracy Chapman song,[3] [2] but the song developed an upbeat vibe.[2] Sadgrove wrote the song to cater to band vocalist Caleb Haapu's voice.[3] Lyrically, the song reminisces the loss of a summer romance.[4]
The band were nervous to send an acoustic song to commercial pop radio.[3] The song was stylistically different to their previous singles, and the band began to feel more fearless and able to release genreless music.[5]
"Drift Away" was released as a single on 16 March 2018.[6] A music video was released for the song in April, which featured a couple enjoying the end of summer at the beach.[4] The song was a commercial success, becoming the number one most performed song on New Zealand radio for 11 weeks,[7] and becoming double platinum certified.
On the band's album Vantage Point released two months later, Sons of Zion included both the original and a pop remix version of the song,[8] and in the same year released a remix version by Otosan.[9] In 2019, the band re-recorded the song in Māori language as "Pōtere Ana / Drift Away", with the help of Tīmoti Kāretu, who translated the song's lyrics. This version of the song was released on Waiata / Anthems, a compilation album.[10] Vocalist Caleb Haapu found recording the song a difficult process, as he does not speak Māori.[11]
"Drift Away" featured as the first track on the band's 2022 compilation album First XV.[12]
Anzel Singh of NZ Musician described "Drift Away" as the "most stripped song on [''Vantage Point''], feeling that the Māori strum guitar and backing vocals created "flashback[s] to moments of sweet escapes".[8] The song was nominated for Single of the Year at the 2018 New Zealand Music Awards, losing to "Woke Up Late" by Drax Project.[13]
Credits adapted from Tidal.[14]
| Position | ||
| New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[15] | 50 |
|---|