Eliza Sayer’s live performance of ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You’ showcases a completely organic, stripped back take on an absolute classic. The raw nature of the performance draws your focus right over to the artist’s voice and to the emotion and sentiment of the song and the performance delivering it. Within such a spacious soundscape, this type of performance has to offer something very real and captivating, at the very least musically precise and seemingly effortless, and at the most – refreshingly unique and beautiful. Fortunately this performance is all of this.
From the moment she begins to play, you’re inclined to listen intently, and when you do, her voice brings forth the heart and soul of the song in a way that seems very genuine. The sound is gentle, minimalist, yet presents a certain sort of artistic power that needs no amount of volume or amplification or additional instrumentation to work its magic. The key change to the higher vocal moments of the song are put under the spotlight even more so as the artist’s strumming pattern is broken down to a single stroke for each chord. This lays everything completely bare, at one point becoming an almost a-capella performance. Once again, her voice never fails to reach those crucial levels, and never is it strained or seemingly out of its depth.
Her voice is naturally beautiful, and with that comes a notable level of control and skill that is only attainable by consistency, practice, learning, and an unwavering love for singing. It’s the sort of performance you could listen to again and again, without it getting tiresome. Hopefully this creativity as shown in the artist’s version comes through in much more of her music to come.
By Rebecca Cullen
Rebecca is a Musician and writer from Manchester, UK, with an MA in Song Writing
