notes
When Sumant first showed me this beat, I was immediately in love with it. He gave me the idea of writing something about drawing, and I chose to use drawing as a metaphor for getting to know someone romantically and seeking out past what you can see. I tried to think of it like this: drawing, as an art form, requires kind of putting yourself on paper. It’s similar to how my songwriting is in part a reflection upon the person I am and the thoughts I have, requiring some level of vulnerability and willingness to spill everything out in the form of lyrics and melodies. Thus, I thought of two people using “drawing”, whether literally or metaphorically, to share parts of themselves to one another.
This was the first track we worked on, and we made this track right at the point I was committing to a creative music career. I was definitely still hesitant, but kind of realizing it would be possible if I just did it right. I wrote this about being an adult but still feeling lost. But it’s not entirely just about feeling lost, because I’m admitting to not knowing much but choosing to trust my decisions (because, really, no one actually knows exactly what they’re doing). The part about realizing the possibility of a successful creative music career really shows in the second verse, towards the end. The last two lines are about how the sky (my goals) are close enough that I just need to get to my tippy toes (lol), so the whole track is kind of that realization paired with self-trust.
We started "blue night" on a casual cook-up in Sumant's room. I watched Sumant sift through a few ideas for beats before he finally landed on one he seemed to really vibe with; as he worked on building out the beat, I started writing my melodies and lyrics. I don't fully remember my thought process as I figured out the theme for the track. I think I was just listening to the beat fill out and my first thought happened to be rain and night, which I then used to build out some imagery that led to the overall theme of the song. It's a big metaphor, where the sky gives rain and I catch it with my hands; though the water in my hands is just a bit of rainfall to the sky, it's an ocean to me. At one point, the melodic flow completely changes in the second verse, and that's where I sing from the perspective of the sky and tell myself that I am welcome to accept what is being given. In the end, it's about the acceptance of love, characterized as rainfall in the track, no matter how big or heavy it might feel.
"euphoria" is probably the most upbeat track on this EP. Lyrically, this track kind of takes you from the point of ambivalence and hesitation about a decision to the commitment and consequent jump. When I first heard the beat, I definitely knew it had to be more of an optimistic narrative, so while the verses talk about the hesitation and uncertainty, the hook and bridge are about chasing after euphoria - or what I truly want for myself. Essentially, by the end of the track, I know where I want to land and have defined my euphoria as my place in between the stars.
I know both Sumant and I really like the way I come in, and I think for Sumant it has a lot to do with my tone and a slightly different melodic vibe from what I normally do. For me, though, it’s the lyrics too. I referenced my tattoos as a symbol of something I did despite my parents’ disapproval. They’d disapproved of the idea of tattoos just like they had disapproved of a music career, but I went ahead and did both of them anyways; I thought the comparison of something so small (tattoos) versus something much bigger (a career path) would be interesting to make from the start, since this entire track is about the danger of an unstable career but the accompanying thrill and adrenaline from pursuing music. Throughout the track, I sing a lot about falling. I thought that the feeling of freefalling and my feelings about my career were similar, in that they’re both scary but there’s thrill to it. You also can’t really back out of falling once you’ve jumped, and I’m in a place where I feel like I can’t really stop here and need to see out a music career until there’s really nowhere else for me to go.
should i stay?
This is definitely one of my favorite tracks in this EP. I love the feeling it gives me, from the production to the way the sample and my voice work together. It’s really the type of music I had been wanting to do for a while but hadn’t had the ability to produce, so I’m super excited about this one. I also love how the beat itself is so energetic and bright, but the actual lyrics are a little bit sad. The whole idea of the track has to do with love that hurts but wanting to stay anyways. My favorite lines are in the pre-chorus, where the sample asks the questions of “should I stay or should I go” while I put in lines about how maybe love is just supposed to hurt a little and I can stay and we can “disappear” together, with the word “disappear” essentially being a representation of how we’d really get destroyed in the end.