The riverside is by the river Spree in Berlin, where Agnes Obel wrote the Philharmonics album. She came up with a melodic section that sounded like water, and formed this song around it.
In her Songfacts interview, Obel explained: "I wanted to write a song about how people can be transformed, and sometimes how when you meet other people who have been through this strange transformation, you can tell. It was a time in my life when I was changing a lot myself, and I wanted to describe that, using water as a border between one world and another."
Alex Bruel Flagstad, Obel's husband, shot the video for this song, which proved extremely popular on YouTube, racking up well over 20 million views. The black-and-white clip was shot on 8mm film at the river where Obel wrote the song.
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.