You Haven't Seen A Great Big World Perform “Say Something” Quite Like This

By Felicia Daniels

March 3, 2014 / 9:00 AM

[mtvn_player vid="999912" autoplay="true"]

A Great Big World's "Say Something" has been on everybody's tongue since its release last fall — a song so heart-wrenchingly honest (a la Adele's "Someone Like You") that pop diva Christina Aguilera asked to feature on its re-release. It raced to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, because, duh. But if you thought the ballad was touching with full orchestral arrangement clocking in at 3 minutes 49 seconds, you're wrong. Prepare to run through a box of tissues in one minute while watching Ian Axel's solo on a keyboard truncate the track for VH1's Stop/Watch (reducing us to tears in the process).

And the You Oughta Know alumnae's inspiration for the tune is almost as stirring as the song. As co-writer Chad Vaccarino put it, "The song writing process felt like closure...I felt like I found resolution with that toxic relationship I was in." Aw! Check out our video gallery below to see if A Great Big World beat the clock like they beat heartbreak, plus hear more details about how they rearranged "Say Something" into a few seconds of anguished brilliance (hint: you've gotta go for the chorus).

Celebrate #MusicIndepenceDay with VH1 Stop/Watch!

video

615x462

video

615x462

video

Want more? You're greedy. Lucky thing watching these doesn't pack on pounds, so feel free to indulge in a diet of your favorite artists' new attempts to rock the clock every Monday all winter long. Watch past Stop/Watch performances from The Fray, American Authors, Twenty One Pilots and more on stopwatch.vh1.com!