Jamie Grey has been quietly building something special. Radio 2 airplay, BBC Introducing support, a sold-out UK headline tour, a show supporting Rag’n’Bone Man, a candlelight performance at St Pancras Old Church — the pieces have been falling into place for a while now. Today he adds another with ‘How Did We Get To Midnight’, his first new single of 2026, and it’s a genuinely lovely piece of music.
Built around a simple, elegant piano melody with Grey’s voice doing the heavy lifting — soft and vulnerable in one moment, full of emotional weight in the next — the song addresses something most people in long-term relationships will recognise immediately: the strange, warm shock of realising that years have passed almost without you noticing. It’s a song about being present, about cherishing time, about the particular kind of love that settles quietly into your life and stays.
Grey explains it in his own words: “I’m an overthinker, and as I’ve got older, I’ve started to understand the value of time a lot more. I used to think I was gonna be a kid forever, but I blinked and that time was over. Now life for me is about trying my hardest to be present, grateful and remembering that I need to cherish time with the people I love the most. This song is that reminder to myself.”
It’s co-written with Charlie Dempsey and produced by Ben Lythe — the same team behind ‘Chains’, ‘Hold Me I’m In Heaven’ and ‘Like What I See’ — and the collaborative chemistry is evident. Grey’s influences sit somewhere between Paolo Nutini’s soulfulness, James Morrison’s warmth and the broad pop accessibility of Ed Sheeran and Teddy Swims, and ‘How Did We Get To Midnight’ draws on all of that without sounding like any of them.
His story is worth knowing too. The Redcar-raised singer quit a career in finance to pursue music, appeared on The Voice in 2017, came back stronger in 2018 and reached the top eight with backing from Olly Murs and Tom Jones. He went on to co-write James Arthur’s ‘Falling Like The Stars’ and contribute to Arthur’s number one album Bitter Sweet Love. He’s earned everything that’s coming his way.
And a Songs I Wrote headline tour across the UK and Europe is coming his way this autumn — full details on that here.
‘How Did We Get To Midnight’ is out now.
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