In October 2019, Canadian singer-songwriter JP Saxe met Grammy award-winning Julia Michaels for the first time. The two wrote a song on the day they met, and months later when the world went into lockdown, that song became the voice of millions of hearts during the pandemic.
A Chance Meeting in Instagram DMs
The story begins with a remarkable coincidence. Julia Michaels shared JP Saxe's 2018 song "25 in Barcelona" on her Instagram story. At that exact moment, Saxe was on a road trip with friends, and they were discussing how Julia Michaels revolutionized pop music. A notification came through, and within minutes, the two were exchanging DMs.
The meeting happened quickly, and they decided to write a song together on their first day. It was weeks after an earthquake in LA. The conversation naturally turned to "why we don't reach out to people we really want to call, and whether that reason would still matter before the world ends."
"I had saved this melody in voice memos on my phone. The file was titled 'Save for Julia.' I wrote it a year ago, but somehow I just knew this one had to be with Julia."— JP Saxe, Songwriter Universe interview
The Woman Who Never Left the Booth
The original plan was for Julia to help on Saxe's solo song. Saxe had recorded his vocals, but the timing kept feeling off. A frustrated Julia went into the booth and said "let me show you how to do it." But she never came out. She ended up singing the entire song instead of just demonstrating.
In that moment, a solo track became a duet. When Julia's part reached "there wouldn't be a reason why we would even have to say goodbye," Saxe was overwhelmed with chills, as he would later recall.
A Prophetic Anthem Born from Pandemic
The song was released in October 2019. The initial response was quiet. But in March 2020, when the world shut down due to COVID-19, everything changed. The inability to see loved ones, the fear that the world was actually ending — the song's lyrics became reality.
It charted upward and entered the Top 40, eventually becoming a Song of the Year nominee at the 63rd Grammy Awards. It was Saxe's first Grammy nomination and Michaels' third.
The Love the Song Predicted
The most beautiful twist is this: The two people who sang "if the world was ending, would you wanna be with me?" while writing the song actually became lovers after the song was finished. And in 2020, when the world truly stopped, they quarantined together in LA.
Whether the song predicted love or love created the song — perhaps it was both. The fact that a melody that had been sleeping in JP Saxe's phone for a year was waiting for Julia Michaels is just as romantic as the song's lyrics themselves.
