Josh Berkeley – Paradise
ARTIST NAME: Josh Berkeley
SONG TITLE: Paradise
RELEASE DATE: July 10, 2021
GENRE: R&B/ Pop
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Josh Berkeley is a Grenadian, singer-songwriter relentless in the pursuit of his music career. As an artist, he is proficient in the creation of music in the Rhythm & Blues/Soul genres.
His youngest memories of performance include playground showcases for friends and family with makeshift instruments. Also, church appearances, from as early as age eight. Later, he conquered numerous musical milestones and his early musical acclaim being an emerging winner within the national competition ‘Grenada Best Talent 2010’. This catapulted him into regional recognition through island-wide radio airplay. Berkeley went on to hold the number one spot, on a regional music countdown for four weeks in a row, via Caribbean television station ‘Tempo’ that same year. Since then, Josh has grown his career from a brief stint with management agency Metronome Records (2010 – 2012) till migrating to the United States.
There, he continued to pursue his career as an independent artist with the assembling of a growing team and active social media presence. Berkeley affirms that ‘Life is short but dreams and aspirations live on through music. My music is a celebration of human feelings.’
LYRICS:
This feels like
Paradise
Paradise
I don’t wanna let it go
This feels like
Paradise
Paradise yea yea
I don’t wanna let it go
You bring the sunlight in my life
Every day I’m thankful for it
You orbit around me
When I’m lost in the pigment of your eyes
I see a future deep inside them
In your arms you remind me
That this feels like
Paradise
Paradise
I don’t wanna let it go
This feels like
Paradise
Paradise yea yea
I don’t wanna let it go
You bring the sunlight in my life
With occasional rain to wet my gardens
You orbit around me (Yea)
When I’m lost in the pigment of your eyes
I see a future deep inside them
In your arms you remind me
That you’d be my
Paradise
Paradise
I don’t wanna let it go
This feels like
Paradise
Paradise yea yea
I don’t wanna let it go
This feels like
Paradise
Paradise
I don’t wanna let it go
This feels like
Paradise
Paradise yea yea
I don’t wanna let it go
Dancing in the sunset
Sand between our toes
(I wanna dance with you)
And just like the night skies
Dark times do come around
But your stars light up the sky
And make it beautiful
Dancing in the sunset
Sand between our toes
(I wanna dance with you)
And just like the night skies
Dark times do come around
But your stars light up the sky
And make it beautiful
This feels like
Paradise
Paradise
I don’t wanna let it go
This feels like
Paradise
Paradise yea yea
I don’t wanna let it go
(Na na na na na)
I don’t wanna let it go
I don’t wanna let it go
State the name of your producer and elaborate on the song.
‘Paradise,’ like many other songs of mine was self-produced with the help of talented musicians I frequently work with on SoundBetter.com. The idea for ‘Paradise’ came about during the summer lockdown and riots of 2020 as a means to escape the madness of that time.
Discuss the lyrics of the song.
The first lyric of the song that came to me was “you bring the sunlight in my life.” it brought a warm, cheerful feeling over me. I then decided to write a song about the happiest and more blissful moments within a relationship.
Elaborate on your music career.
My music career officially began at the age of 19. At the time I still lived in Grenada and was signed to a local record label. It was my brief stint with then label that taught me a lot of the business side of the music industry and why I chose to remain independent the years afterward. My primary focus at this stage in my career is to build an authentic and strong core fan base so that I may have an audience for a lifetime.
Brief us on how you are reaching fans with your music.
Most of my engagements with fans come from social media Instagram, Facebook, and Spotify listeners.
Discuss your motive behind making music.
The motive behind my music-making process will always be to create something that comes from the heart, something that may have the potential to live for a very long time.
Discuss your songwriting.
Songwriting for me is a visual experience. I first picture myself within a certain scenery, I picture what time of day it is, sometimes I even picture what season of the year it might be during the song… then I write down some keywords that stand out to me. The ideas for melody usually flow naturally after I have created a visual storyboard within my head, and lastly, I work on the lyrics.
Elaborate on your work and achievement so far in your music career.
So far, I have won a national talent competition in Grenada, topped Tempo’s Cross Caribbean Countdown (Television station) for four weeks, I also won a John Lennon Songwriting Contest with an entry of mine in 2020. My biggest achievement though is the feeling I get when I make a new fan from all different places around the world.
Tell us your opinion on using a rhymes dictionary or writing software to develop lyrics.
This is actually a great songwriter hack. It helps you save a lot of time and gives the option to audition different words to see how they fit within the rhyme scheme.
Discuss the music industry.
The music industry is a challenging one! It can definitely break a person if they aren’t mentally strong.
Elaborate on how you prepare yourself for a recording session.
Firstly, I arrive with a completed song in hand. I then warm up for about an hour and I also make sure that I have lukewarm water to drink to soothe my vocals.
Brief us on your preference in terms of tempo as in up-tempo, mid-tempo, or slow tempo.
It depends on the song. For a ballad, I’d choose a mid-slow tempo but for a summer anthem or party song, I prefer faster/up-tempo.
Discuss your shows or live performance.
I recently got together with a band here in Connecticut, US, and we’re preparing dates for the last quarter of the year. So stay tuned via social media for updates!
Share your press release and reviews with us.
Josh Berkeley’s 2021 new single ‘Paradise’ sets the tone for a post-COVID summer of sweetness.
Just in time for cheerful weather, singer-songwriter Josh Berkeley announces the release of his first 2021 summer single “Paradise”. The love song, available everywhere July 10th, 2021, is a feel-good, R&B/Soul track, set in a time of romance, new beginnings, and bliss. As the world begins to emerge from its COVID daze, so too, is this melody a reminder of simple pleasures using soft vocals and a serene rhythm.
Berkeley began composing “Paradise” at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. The track took the year of mass uncertainty and surviving the pandemic to complete. While its origins are gloomy, “Paradise” is anything but disheartening. Its lyrics are proof of the human will to love again despite anguish. The song’s mood is airy and warm, with lyrics that embrace those carefree days of a new romance when it all feels like nothing could go wrong. “I wanted to write something happy to momentarily escape from all that was going on around the world with the pandemic and the riots…” (Berkeley 2021) As the world surmounted new challenges “Paradise” emerges to join the 2021 summer playlist.
Berkeley is known for topping the charts at #1 on Tempo’s Cross Caribbean Countdown in September 2011 and being the John Lennon Songwriting completion weekly winner, in May 2020. Like most creatives, he continued to chase inspiration in the devastating reality that was 2020.
Refusing to let his art be silenced by despair after the death of George Floyd, Berkeley continued sharing music across social media platforms during the height of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, creating music that would serve as catharsis for many hurting and isolated.
Berkeley, an afro-Caribbean musician making music for over a decade, finds influences from the music of artists such as Usher and Maxwell. He discloses, “I wrote the song around the line you bring the sunlight into my life, every day I am thankful for you.” Things are beginning to look up as coronavirus cases slow to an all-time low and the release of ‘Paradise’ is a reminder to listeners that life is rejuvenating in full bloom.
Send a message across to your fans and supporters.
To my fans and supporters: Thank you so much for choosing me as an artist you want to listen to! Every minute you spend with my music is time you take out of your lives to do so and I do not take that lightly. I appreciate every one of you so much.
Discuss the storyline of the song.
In ‘Paradise,’ the author believes that he has found someone he can possibly spend the rest of his life with. Hence the line “when I’m lost in the pigment of your eyes I see a future deep inside them.” Paradise takes place in the middle of summer, somewhere tropical near a beach, “… dancing in the sunset, sand between our toes.” I wanted to write (from a guy’s perspective) about the newness and bliss of summer love.
Tell us what makes this song unique from others.
What makes ‘Paradise’ more unique than my previously released songs is the budget, talent level of everyone involved, and the sharp but catchy lyrics.
Tell us the themes of most of your compositions.
Most of my compositions come from lived experiences and my overly creative imagination.