‘So Much Love’ connects ‘strangers, just by chance’

Released on December 20 to coincide with the United Nations’ International Human Solidarity Day, global musician, Gustavo Lovato’s “So Much Love” was an idea born in a Brooklyn subway train, amplified in the United Kingdom, cultivated in Argentina, and brought to audiences with a message expanding on Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot.”

“I can’t remember if I was coming back or going to work on the subway, but I was listening to music and I just looked around at everyone: one person was napping, another eating, another absent-mindedly looking out of the window at the scenes passing by—and I realized, even with everyone in their own element, in their own world, that there was a lot of love in that car, and yet we were all missing it,” said Lovato of the muse-finding moment that began his latest release.

Told in second person, lyrically, “So Much Love” is a song that challenges self-reflection to find the connectivity in the world that we are all capable of having, yet reluctant to act upon.

“So much love, that you don’t see…why don’t you see?” the narrator asks of themselves, much like a haunting plea of solidarity against apathy or loneliness.

“Everyone has people in their lives that they love—a parent, a spouse, children, and friends. We are strangers, just by chance,” said Lovato.

Trilingual, Lovato is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese after a lifetime of international abodes, “So Much Love” is a triumph of melding his passionate, raw Spanish works with his more cerebral, cinematic English songs.

“In the genre of progressive rock, you have almost mini movies as opposed to a glance of a scene in other genres…sometimes it takes eight, nine, twenty-three minutes to tell the whole story, but for this one, it demanded less than that,” said Lovato.

Calling on all Lovato’s musical influences, a Broadway ending befits the far-reaching message of “So Much Love” as does Choir Noir who sings part of the song at first with three female voices backing up the guitar solo, and then as a full choir of ten in the powerful final chorus and during the emotional outro coloring Sagan’s profound thoughts regarding “the only home we’ve ever known.”

Marillion had featured Choir Noir, from the United Kingdom, in two songs from their last album and Lovato reached out to them after his first few iterations of “So Much Love.”

During those exploratory email exchanges, Kat Marsh, Choir Noir’s leader and arranger observed and agreed with Lovato’s vision: “A choir of 10 singers will make these arrangements sound very full and luscious.”

While Lovato had prerecorded the guitar, bass, main vocals, and virtual sounds in Brooklyn, Mati Sabagh provided the drums in Buenos Aires. “Technology has gotten so good, but you cannot beat a real drummer,” said Lovato, who has in the past taken computer-generated drum work in his art and “humanized” it with imperfections to achieve the right sound.

“’So Much Love’ was challenging for me because unlike in other songs of Gustavo’s where I played drums, this time he had very specific arrangement ideas and fills that I had to diagram in and execute in the recording,” said Sabagh, “I already know Gustavo’s taste sound-wise, so it is more about comprehending what the spirit of the song is and giving my interpretation of it, with the understanding that he has the final word regarding what stays and what goes.”

Drum recording for “So Much Love” took place in the historical ION studio where some of Argentina’s greatest musical performers have codified their art.

Javier Mazzarol, who was the drums recording engineer and overall mixing engineer for the track and has won a Latin Grammy Award, said, “With Gustavo, we always work with the notion of trying any idea on the song and in case it does not work we go back, but since we explored all ideas, and thankfully are not bound by deadlines, we are not left with doubts. Technically, mixing the choir was “So Much Love”'s biggest challenge and I think the color they brought to the song is very effective.”

Grammy and multiple Latin Grammy award-winner Carlos Laurenz mastered the song, also in Buenos Aires.

Laurenz said, “Mastering Gustavo’s songs is relatively easy, in a way, because they are songs that have been worked on a long time and with a lot of dedication not only by he himself, but also by his mixing engineer, so when it comes to mastering, these mixes don’t have any inherent problems, but rather my role is to beautify the song as a final step.”

“We’re not all going to be best friends, but a small kindness, like a ‘please’ or a ‘thank you’ or moving your backpack for someone to sit on the subway, it all adds up and helps us realize that making someone’s day better is not a huge ask,” said Lovato.