The chorus is a rewrite of the chorus in Johnny Nash's 1972 hit, I Can See Clearly Now. Grace wrote the bridge.
Media reactions
"Grace Vanderwaal's New Song 'Clearly' Is One of The Most Uplifting Things We've Heard" (articles.aplus.com Apr. 1, 2018)
"...she does Nash’s original justice. Vanderwaal’s voice brings a raw emotion to the song that helps the lyrics greatly. The lyric changes help her reach out to her younger audience as she talks about taking on “rainstorms” in life and accepting them". (The Broadcaster April 16, 2018)
Grace on the song and how it came about
“My new single ‘Clearly’ is about hope and having the courage to face the world, which can be pretty tough sometimes,” said Vanderwaal in an interview with Vents magazine. “My favourite lyric from the song is ‘I accept all the things that I cannot change,’” said Vanderwaal, “As much as we try to change ourselves, we will always be the same person deep down. We should embrace what makes us different and love that about ourselves.” [Source]
"I think it's such a cool optimistic song; it's like a huge statement of the seventies. I thought it would be cool too, and this wasn’t only my idea, to kind of add darker lyrics leading up to the super happy chorus… there’s really only been one version of it; there have been many remakes and covers, but it’s always kind of been the same. [Why hope is such an important message] I think we have all heard about hope from the past generations and looked forward to it and got taught about it, and I think that for some reason, that whole lesson just skipped our generation for some reason, I don’t know why. And I think a lot of people know the world and the definition but don’t know how it feels or how to do it, so it’s really important to teach Gen Z what hope is and how to feel it.” (Grace in Interview on MTV Live April 23, 2018, Performance# 155)
“My favourite line in the song is “I accept all the things that I cannot change”, and when I heard that, that’s when I knew I wanted to keep this song and release it as my own because it is really, really important for younger people, especially younger girls to know that like – it’s just, it’s YOU, and everything about you, whether it’s physical, your personality, who you are, like, you’ll never ever be able to change that, you can do everything in your power, but it will still be you” (Grace in the “Behind the Scenes video” for the “Clearly” music video, released Apr. 11, 2018)
“He [Ido] told me that him and a few buddies were rewriting and adding on to this really famous chorus,” she explains, adding that as soon as she heard the chorus, she ran out to tell her mother about it, who instantly recognised the original song. “So, I ran back in; I was like, OK, I know that song. I’ll try singing it. I’ll test it out, but I can’t promise that I wanna keep it. So, I started singing it, I’m like these words are amazing, oh my gosh they are touching my soul so much. And we took some takes of it, and it was actually super cool, and by the end, I’m like, ‘Of course, I’m keeping this’. This is a masterpiece – [Ido], you’re such a genius.” She also explains that while she loves the sound of choirs on songs, it requires a great deal of work to do so. To accomplish that sound, Zmishlany recorded nearly a dozen different takes of himself singing the part to sound like various different people, while VanderWaal did “like a million” takes, as well. Some were recorded from across the room, and one was intentionally recorded with a “really weird voice” because there’s always that one kind of bad person in the choir like you gotta mix that in.”(Interview in the “How it Went Down” Billboard video)
The origins of the idea to reimagine the song
One of the writers Ido was working with on the song explains how the idea was born: "I came up with the idea to reimagine this song at a songwriting camp for Demi Lovato in a big house in California’s wine country. We originally pitched the idea to Demi but she didn’t want to do it, and then Grace heard it and wanted to take a shot at it. I’m glad she did because she absolutely nailed it, and I really love her version. It’s a song about depression and breaking through to the other side. The original song doesn’t actually have any verses or pre-choruses, it’s pretty much all chorus, so we wrote verses we wanted to tell more story. Fun fact: I’m singing backing vocals in the hook." (Mike Waters Shares The Stories Behind Five Songs He Has Co-Written, Music Feeds, July 2, 2020)
The original version
I Can See Clearly Now” — which Johnny Nash wrote and produced himself — was a huge success, going gold and providing him a four-week run at No. 1 in the States. It became a hit again in 1993 when Jimmy Cliff recorded it for the soundtrack of “Cool Runnings”; it reached No. 18 and was the Jamaican musician’s highest-charting U.S. song. Others who’ve covered the tune on the record include Ray Charles, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Grace VanderWaal, Hothouse Flowers and the punk band Screeching Weasel. It was more recently repopularized in US Bank commercials. It’s arguable whether “I Can See Clearly Now” was a true reggae song, but his interest in the genre was clear and true, and he even covered three songs by his friend Bob Marley on the album that came out under that title — co-writing a fourth with him, “You Poured Sugar on Me.”
(Chris Willman for Variety Oct 7, 2020)
Versions of Grace's version
The songs was used in the US version of NextGen (see link in the Reviews, Reactions etc. box below) and a Chinese version of the song as made for the Chinese version of the show, apparently with
some complications in getting the rights to do this.
THE MUSIC VIDEO
The video was shot in a house three minutes from Grace’s house in Suffern, she had passed it on her bike many times.”
(Grace in the “Behind the Scenes video” for the “Clearly” music video, released Apr. 11, 2018)
