Jasmine Crowe and Nick Mair Look for Connection in “Can’t Find Love”

Jasmine Crowe and Nick Mair might not be able to find love—as their new single, “Can’t Find Love,” attests—but at least the two LA singer-songwriters and producers have found each other.

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“Nick is one of my good friends—an extremely talented singer, writer, and producer,” Crowe tells American Songwriter. “I met him mutually through another producer friend we both work with so we’d both been wanting to collaborate for a while. ‘Can’t Find Love’ is the third song we’ve written together, our first collaboration being ‘House of Cards’ recently released from my debut album.”

“Can’t Find Love” sees Crowe and Mair singing about the difficulties of looking for connection. The track—premiering below with a visualizer directed by Jeremy Eichenbaum—is wakeful and atmospheric, pairing Mair and Crowe’s searching vocals with spare acoustic guitar.

“We’d just finished working on another song one day and in conversation during the session we’d been chatting off and on about relationships—finding a sense of purpose and wanting to find a connection with someone, especially in a big city where things can seem transitory moving so fast, and people can often be guarded,” says Crowe of the song’s origin. “Then it dawned on us—‘That’s another song!’”

“Nick felt inspired to pick up the guitar and start another track right away. As a producer he was very specific in the direction he wanted to take this song—keep the track simple and emotional. He came up with that picking pattern you hear on the intro and we started laying down some vocals. We only had a few lyric ideas at first like the backups ‘in the city’ laying out the top-line melodies.”

Lyrically, the song speaks to a sense of restlessness. “When the silence speaks at night / Like I’ve gone insane all hours past midnight / Keeping everything inside / If you come around got nothing here to hide,” Mair sings in the opening verse. A later verse, delivered by Crowe, feels like a cosmic reply: “When the silence speaks at night / Will you come to me and tell me it’s alright / Got nothing here to hide / You can stay or leave / But right now this feels fine.”

“Sometimes I love writing lyrics at night when everything’s quiet and I can really feel out the meaning behind the music,” says Crowe. “My process doesn’t always work that way but that night I felt inspired and was really listening to the specific phrasing in Nick’s vocal, wanting to capture the feeling and intention behind what we’d talked about. I wanted the lyrics to still reflect on letting yourself be vulnerable and open—coming from an honest place inside where it can feel lonely even when you’re surrounded by people. Especially with what we’ve all been going through lately and with everything that’s been going on in the world right now, I think it’s actually revealing how truly connected we all are.”

For Mair, the song was inspired by a certain type of loneliness brought on by hookup culture and dating apps—particularly in large cities like Los Angeles.

“Typically before Jasmine and I write a song we catch up, talk about life and what we’re going through and one day we randomly discussed difficulties in finding love,” he explains. “We talked about our experiences and what we’ve heard from friends in the past and came to a realization: In today’s world, people have too many options and we don’t lean into things as much as we used to. So ‘Can’t Find Love’ was inspired by today’s hookup culture where we’re part of this generation that’s driven by apps and swiping. Connections are a lot more empty than substantive and it’s tough to find a genuine connection in a world that is increasingly more isolated with people relying on digital means. You’d think it’d be the opposite in a big city filled with people.”

“Can’t Find Love” follows Crowe’s 2019 debut album, Symptoms, and Mair’s latest singles “One Day” and “You & Me.” The artists co-wrote the track, with Mair producing and contributing guitar. Check it out below.

“Can’t Find Love” is out May 22.

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