Christian Karlsson, more popularly known as Galantis, had a dream he was determined to make come true by working with Dolly Parton. That dream became reality in 2019 when the Swedish duo of Karlsson and Linus Eklow created “Faith,” a remix of John Hiatt‘s “Have a Little Faith in Me,” featuring Parton and Mr. Probz. “My biggest dream was to work with Dolly and everyone told me to give that dream up, it’s never gonna happen,” Karlsson laughs in a Zoom interview with American Songwriter.
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Karlsson claims that, at the time, no one in the dance music community had collaborated with Parton, and getting the song to her was truly an act of faith. For years, he repeatedly reached out to her team asking about a collaboration but was always met with rejection. “Was it really her though? What if it’s someone else that said no?” he often ponders. He had his major breakthrough when his friend David Saint Fleur, now Global A&R at Atlantic Records, said he wanted to give it a shot and returned with the good news that Parton heard the song and liked it.
[RELATED: Galantis Gets the Party Started with New Dance Track “Koala”]
Galantis had another idea in mind for a Parton collaboration when Saint Fleur pitched the idea of turning Hiatt’s 1987 piano ballad into a dance track. The original version finds Hiatt singing When the road gets dark / And you can no longer see / Just let my love throw a spark / And have a little faith in me. That’s when Galantis worked their magic, adding in some of their own lyrics like, Know the road gets hard / And you just want to leave / I ain’t never been too far /Just have a little faith in me.
Galantis sent Parton a demo of the remixed track when Karlsson soon got a phone call from Parton out of the blue. “She was like, ‘Is this Christian? I like your song, how do we do this? I have some ideas, you want to hear?’ And she was singing over the phone and I was like, ‘This is amazing,’” he smiles. Karlsson soon came to Nashville to record her vocals and the moment he stepped into the studio, she beckoned him to sing the song for her to give her an idea of how he wanted it to sound.
As a contributing writer to “Faith,” Parton’s verse has her singing When you don’t know who you are / I will find you so easily, oh / Don’t you worry / Whenever you need me / Have a little faith in me, while the chorus has all of the singers reprising the title of Haitt’s song over an EDM melody. “It was a song that took a lot of small details and turns to end up where it ended up. Some songs are fast and some songs are not. This one, it was a great experience and a great journey having Dolly come on board and coming with her ideas,” Karlsson describes the experience he calls a “dream come true.” “She was the absolute most amazing person I’ve ever been with in the studio.”
“Faith” was released as a single off the duo’s 2020 album, Church. It reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart. In 2023, the song was certified gold by the RIAA.
Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images for ABA
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