"Carry ON" unplugged version - telegraph exclusive

She's been around the world and couldn't find her baby, but now Lisa Stansfield is back with a new album, Seven, her first in 10 years.

To celebrate Stansfield's self-imposed musical exile, she performs her forthcoming single Carry On exclusively for Telegraph.co.uk.

Written by Stansfield and her long-time songwriting partner Ian Devaney, whose credits include The Bodyguard and Indecent Proposal soundtracks, the song is an homage to classic Northern Soul and a story of the end of a relationship and emotional survival – a common theme on Stansfield's new album.

“She is really saying to him, ‘I will carry on and you’re not going to affect my life. I’m not going to fall to pieces because you’re not there’", explains the 47-year-old multi-award winner from Rochdale.

Twenty five years after topping the charts across the globe with the song All Around the World, the Grammy Award nominee, can boast sales of nearly 20 million records and a string of international top 10 hits.

Seven marks a return to the soul and R&B that Stansfield is known for.
“It is a soul record and while it is eclectic there is a thread running through it," says Stansfield.
“A lot of the album is about the trap that a woman has got herself into - an unrequited, doomed or mismatched love - and how to get herself out of it…if she can.”
“I think we all suffer the same pain, all feel the same happiness, and we all have the same emotions within us. My life isn’t very racy or exciting so I make things up, tell stories. I like telling stories.”
Why has it been so long since her last album?
“I felt I didn’t fit in anywhere. I didn’t want to alter what I do to fit in to a current trend but things run in cycles and now it feels as though the time is right to get my foot in the door again.”
Having sold out a European tour earlier this year, this autumn Lisa embarked on her second UK tour of the year and has announced a European tour for May 2014.
Adding a further string to her bow, Stansfield will be starring in Northern Soul , an independent film about the genre due out later this year.
Charting the soul phenomenon that rose out of Northern England, the film sees Lisa team up with Steve Coogan and Ricky Tomlinson paying homage to the musical genre that has influenced her own style.

Seven is out now. Carry On is released February 24