I WILL TRY, a song I released in 2021, with the utmost excitement, and big fear.
In Italy, pandemic. I only had the chorus down, and a very basic instrumental track on Logic Pro. I wanted to write a song about resilience, that made you lose your s**t and made you feel hyper-empowered.
My producer F.H. had a listen in London, came back to me with a draft, and a message: "you'll either love what I've done with it, or you'll hate it."
And I loved what he had done.
The song quickly became a hymn on self-expression and personal strength, a quirky glam-pop track that became the beginning of Nevada Red.
BEHIND THE LYRICS
People have asked me, " what the f**k is VERSE 1 about? " so let's start from there:
Eyes are dancing
Parallel
The grown-up bell
It’s been ringing for a while
Make-believe
is my brain freeze
Ice-cream
This is a peek into how I had been feeling at the time, pandemic times. I'm dancing in front of a mirror, staring at my reflection, I've grown up, I've aged, internally, maybe externally. Is it time to 'become an adult'? Is it time to hear the bell of maturity? Then I remember that stories, fantasies and all the fairytales are what keep me going, my 'ice-cream' so to speak.. and yet, they also cause my brain to freeze, to stop operating because of how intense they can be.
The CHORUS is the nucleus of the track.
I will try
I will try
I will try to feel like
I am still one million
Years of Light
So high
So high
Whenever pain and hardship and trauma and sadness hit me, and hit anyone, I wanted this song to be a reminder of using that ice cream, that fantasy, to move past it, to move through it. Leaning on the make-believe is sometimes all we have to survive. Even when I feel like s***t, I wanted to remember how to feel so freakin' high, million years of light so high, which is a hyperbole, obviously; I love my hyperboles.
I want to end this article with the BRIDGE
I will try to feel alive inside for just another day
Tried to fight, the best that I could, so I wouldn’t go astray
I am different, I am queer, I am my mother’s faith
Death, she smiles in front of me but she won’t take me today
I think bridges are the best parts of a song, personally; in a bridge's space, one can incapsulate the secret messages, the new beginnings, it's a space where the story suddenly changes, changes direction or drops many feet below the surface. One of my favourite bridges of all time is Lady Gaga's (unreleased) song Brooklyn Nights, the chords change, the energy slightly changes.. everything changes; it gives me hard goosebumps.
In the bridge of I WILL TRY, I wanted to give the listener more before the end of the song. In here I get to scream who I am, proud of my queerness, and proud of being my mother's daughter; I think that to be someone's faith is a sacred experience. And I tell death, smiling in front of me, that I won't die, today. It's powerful, I'm proud of this song.
My mother loves this song, and she tells me at least once a week that she's been dancing in her living room to the song, I've got videos too of her doing it, it's so very utterly cute.
Thank you for reading xx