Behind The Song: “Say Something,” A Great Big World

A Great Big World—the duo comprised of Ian Axel and Chad King—sometimes can’t believe their eyes and ears. When their music is on popular television shows like Glee or when they’re performing at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show or when they’re sharing a song with the global icon, Christina Aguilera, sometimes they just pinch themselves, happy at the result of loads of hard work.

Together, the two friends and longtime collaborators (ever since their college days at New York University) have worked quite hard. Through lots of internal, existential digging, they’ve come up with a formula for writing that works for them. But sometimes something unpredictable happens. Sometimes you write a great song like “Say Something” and Aguilera calls and wants to sit in.

We caught up with Axel and King to talk to them about their songwriting process, how they wrote their 2013 piano-based hit, “Say Something” (with co-writer Mike Campbell), which has since featured Aguilera, earned a Grammy Award, and garnered over half-a-billion streams on YouTube, alone.