Featured Photo Credit: Bao Ngo
On this episode we chatted with alt-pop singer-songwriter Sabrina Song.
It’s one thing to put feelings into words, but Sabrina is a master at putting those feelings into song. Her intimate lyrics find meaning in the most nuanced experiences, while her purposeful instrumentation helps to tell the story.
Her latest single “Doors” is an example of that brilliant artistry. Through the lyrics, Sabrina contemplates a relationship’s toxicity and the times she wishes she advocated for herself. That inhibition is also represented through the purposely restrained melody that never hits the expected explosive chorus.
We sat down and chatted with Sabrina Song about the production of the single, her upcoming EP, and more!
Take a listen!
Excerpt from the podcast:
What was the inspiration behind the song “Doors”?
It was written towards the end of my senior year of college, which was last year. I was sitting alone in one of the studios at my school and kind of wanted to feel like I was making use of my time before I could never have these studios again. I picked up a bass, and I don’t play bass. I just kind of started tinkering around and created a loop that I liked and just kind of got into this head space of being at the end of school and it being such a transitional time. I wanted to kind of dig into these vignettes that kept popping into my head of moments where I felt like I didn’t really advocate for myself. I feel like I’m the kind of person who would rather live unhappily in a relationship than be the one who burns the bridge and that was something I was working on changing because I knew it was affecting me and affecting my confidence. It was really getting to me and I felt like I wanted to explore a way to put that into song that wasn’t spiteful and wasn’t like I’m holding a grudge. I actually wanted to let go of these relationships, or at least their hold on me, and be more hands off like this is just not going to have power over me anymore. I’m not going to throw a tantrum and we’re not gonna have this huge blowout fight. And I’m also not going to forgive you. I’m not going to apologize. It’s more like, this is just how things are and I’m not gonna expect you to change. I’m going to keep living my life and not keep conceding to you.
You worked with director Zac Don Wiesel for the concept of the music video. Can you talk a little bit about where the inspiration for that video came from?
The whole concept of the video and the kind of world that it ended up being was entirely Zac’s pitch. We had worked together on the last music video I’d released for my song “Thaw.” I had just sent him the song months and months before it was even finished, and just kind of wanted to plant the seed of like, if this does anything for you, or like if this feels like it speaks to you and you’d wanna do a video, like, you know, in the completely no pressure way. It was the first thing he said on the first call that we had about it. He was like I feel like it should be this high school world, and we’re using high school clichés, but not in the traditional sense. There’ll be this player who’s dancing. And he was like, I see it clearly, but it was definitely along the way, maybe harder for even people on the set to be like, what are we making? What is this? I think the more we talked about it and kind of dug into why and how they served the song and the message of the song…We definitely collaborated on the feeling we wanted it to evoke and the specific vignettes we should include, or not, but the concept and the whole kind of premise was all Zac.
Listen to the full interview on the podcast!