Hässlich
I See Red
In a nutshell, I SEE RED ft. Adyn Young is an angry song about being fed up with having to be vigilant as a woman— coming to the shocking realisation that you cannot control how men perceive you and wanting to fight against this. I was inspired to write this record after I was at a networking event and this random man approached me and started grabbing my shirt, touching me, and feeling my shoulders. He asked while leering, “what is this material you’re wearing?”. We all know he was not interested in the make and manufacture of a red silk shirt, but rather the body underneath it. I left feeling angry, uncomfortable, and like I could break a wall with my bare fist.
2045
2045 is about how time moves increasingly fast as you grow older and suddenly you wake up in 2045 (for example!), and you wonder where all that time went! I had long-been weirded out by the fact that I was turning 20, and I felt like I was suffering from Peter-Pan syndrome, with my soul stuck in my mid teens. I don’t know what it is about getting older, but when you turn 20, it is almost as if someone has put your life on 2x speed, and years are passing like months which are passing like weeks, which are passing like days, etc. I couldn’t believe where the time had gone. As far as I knew, I had finished high school yesterday. A time when the years were super long and the days were short. Now the days are long and the years are short. Not sure which I prefer.
Pacifist Philosophy
I wrote Pacifist Philosophy way back in lockdown after hearing about lots of unrest and wars in different parts of the world happening concurrently. It begged the question of ‘why do we always resort to killing?’ If you think about it, war is a fundamentally strange concept. One man wants to gain more power, more territory, so he sends his counterparts to fight, kill, and die in battle. There is so much bloodshed that has occurred in the history of mankind, and I wonder if we will ever learn that wars are tragic and completely futile. From an individual standpoint, there was very little I could do to stop any global conflicts from happening, or any resulting bloodshed. I was left feeling helpless and upset, so like any songwriter I wrote a song to soothe my emotions. The initial lyrics of Pacifist Philosophy were quite random— I proposed different ways of settling global conflicts, such as debates, dance battles, etc. I just wanted to make it crystal clear how absurd the concept of war and killing was in global politics.
Hypnotising
“Hypnotising” is about the ‘Pied Piper of Hamelin’ in real life. We all know someone or something that draws you in, so much so that it is irresistible to you even if it is against your will. I wrote this song after watching ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ for the first time. I felt that the characters were so well-crafted, and each of the main cast had this siren-like allure to them. It was almost as if they were each their own ‘Pied Pipers,’ eventually leading them to their respective demises. This song was made entirely in my bedroom and over zoom with Simon Dobson. The song was created in collaboration with French-Japanese fashion and music brand Maison Kitsuné, and artist Li Hui.
In My DNA
’In My DNA’ was written based on the experiences of my parents and grandparents in India, as well as an interesting documentary I watched on the Bangladesh brothel town of Daulatdia. The documentary follows a young girl and her life in the village — she wants an education but it is extremely difficult to access one. She explains that the town is ‘unsafe’ for her because the leering eyes of men follow her around with malicious intent. Many of the women and children in the town had been sold into prostitution or were born and bred there after generations. They want to escape but feel that the town has trapped them, with every waking minute they spend there the shackles grow tighter. My parents and grandparents had also experienced poverty and conditions like this in India. Essentially, In My DNA is about feeling confined to a circumstance or identity because it is ‘in your DNA’ but nevertheless still hoping for better things.