“Seal said to me while we were doing the first album, ‘I’ve got this song - it’s a bit like Greensleeves.’ I was like, ‘that sounds interesting’”: Trevor Horn on the waltz-time song with the "crazy" vocal harmonies that gave Seal a '90s US number one

UNSPECIFIED - JANUARY 01: Photo of SEAL (Photo by Roberta Parkin./Redferns).

It might be remembered as a decidedly mediocre superhero movie (and that’s putting it kindly), but 1995’s Batman Forever did have at least one high-quality thing going for it. In their infinite wisdom, the producers included Seal’s Kiss From A Rose on the soundtrack, giving this 1994 song a new lease of life and sending it to number one in the US.

The story goes that Seal was never particularly proud of Kiss From A Rose, and hesitated in bringing it to producer Trevor Horn while they were making Seal II, his second studio album. Speaking in a series of shorts on his YouTube channel, though, Horn recalls that Seal had a clear vision for the song’s memorable vocal harmonies as soon as he came into the studio.