featured image by Sophia Bailey
Track Dissection aims to capture the essence of an artist’s song: the effort behind it, the context surrounding it, and the emotions etched within it. In each piece, the artist pulls back the curtain of their work, revealing its intimacies.
Initial Idea for the Song
I was in my last year of college and everyone around me was moving forward, chasing their passions, their paths so clear… and I felt stuck. I was constantly comparing myself to everyone and it was eating away at me, almost like it was blocking me from moving at all. At the time, I didn’t even know what my goals were anymore — which felt insane, because ever since I was a kid, my answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was “Everything.” I was deeply doubting everything I’d ever believed about myself. Am I not good enough? Were people lying when they said they loved my voice or my writing? That kind of thinking wasn’t new — I’d been chipping away at my own confidence since middle school, when I first started getting super insecure about literally everything about myself. By the time I wrote this song, it felt like my spark had been buried for years, and I was clawing at it, trying to bring it back. That’s why the song feels so desperate — it’s me trying to pull myself out of invisibility, out of that screaming-into-a-void feeling, standing frozen while the whole world rushes past me in a timelapsed blur.
Physical Writing Process
I usually write everything in my Notes app, but with “Sundial” I wanted to slow down and be more intentional — layer the lyrics, dig deeper. So I made myself write it both in my notebook and my phone. It became more than just writing a song; it was a whole learning process. I was teaching myself guitar for the first time, figuring out the basics of producing in Logic, and exploring what songwriting felt like outside of my comfort zone. Since piano’s been my main instrument since I was 5, writing through guitar felt like speaking a new language. The original demo ended up sounding completely different, but I love that I think it’s proof of how much I grew through the process. “Sundial” helped me pinpoint [and] verbalize feelings I’d been carrying for years, which made it even more special and fulfilling to go through that process, especially when it was finished.
Lyricism
I wrote “Sundial” pretty unintentionally — I was just messing around on guitar, and the song slowly took shape over time. I didn’t have a clear plan, but all the feelings I’d been carrying — feeling stuck, lost, and constantly comparing myself to others — just poured into it. At first, it was never meant for release. It was more of a personal experiment, something I was doing for myself. That changed when my friend, Shawdi, introduced me to her friend Sania, who wanted to practice filming music videos. I didn’t think I had any songs ready for something like that, but I picked “Sundial” anyway. Once I decided to go for it, I called my friend Max to record since I didn’t have the gear or set-up. I asked my friend Ryan to play the guitar part for me because I wasn’t confident in my own skills yet. He sent me a voice memo — you can even hear his jacket rustling in the recording — and I loved how raw and unpolished it felt, so we kept it exactly as it was. We recorded my vocals in a single take. For someone who’s had bad stage fright since middle school and was still brand new to recording, it was wild how calm I felt. The song was so personal that I completely zoned out of the room and sang it like it was just for me. When I came out of it, Max had tears in his eyes. Later, when I played it for my friends, they either cried too or just looked at me and went, “Oh shit.” That was a really full-circle moment because I’d started writing this song feeling invisible, like I was screaming into a void, and now people were hearing me. Seeing me. It was more validating than I could have imagined. After that, Sania shot my first ever music video, and I spent the next year with my producer friends Max and Valentine slowly building the track until it felt exactly right. I learned that slow, emotional songs like this take time to grow, and I’m so glad I gave it that time. Looking back, it’s insane how random events lined up and ended up shaping it. If Sania hadn’t wanted to shoot a music video and I hadn’t chosen “Sundial,” I probably would’ve kept it to myself. “Sundial” ended up being the first real step toward building my artist project — it was the starting point for everything that came after.
Early Versions
The original demo of “Sundial” sounds so different from the final version, but I love it. It was just me figuring things out in Logic for the first time, teaching myself as I went. I never made it with the intention of releasing. It feels really intimate, from the sound of my voice and how each verse was recorded at different times of the year, you can literally hear my grow and change and evolve which I think is so fun to listen back to. I also recorded this into silly little headphones in my college apartment, usually late at night when I had to sing quietly so I wouldn’t wake anyone up. So listening back feels very nostalgic and I just wanna give that version of me a hug ❤
Lyric Annotation
Waiting for someone to recognize me
It felt like I was just waiting to be seen instead of demanding to be, like I was just waiting around for someone.
Pull me out of my incomplete dreams
I was dreaming big but they didn’t have the full picture and that something was blocking me from making my dreams a reality.
Looking from, graves I dug
Eventually, I made my peace
It felt like I was the one holding myself back. I made my peace, I became complacent with my dreams not being a reality and complacent to the low/insecurity and stagnant feelings I was having and living with.
Took my finger off control
Watch the clouds collide, and seasons pass me by
As they all leave me behind
I let go of trying to control and kind of surrendered to my “fate.” The feeling of being the only one not moving in a time-lapse while everything and everyone is moving.
Always in the background
Can’t you hear my drowning screams
Head comparing me to perfect people on TV
Always in the background
Can’t you hear my drowning screams
The chorus is a cry for help, where as the first verse is reflecting on the negative feelings that I was experiencing. The chorus is the screaming into the void, saying, “this is something I want to change.” My internal voice wants to be heard, the voice that’s fighting the complacency.
I was lost, I caved in
Complacency took over me
All these years in my head
Weaving poison thread to melodies
Verse 2 shows that I’m leaving these feelings in the past as there’s more apparent past tense verbiage being used.
Don’t wanna be left behind
This is when I figure out exactly how I feel. At the end of the day, I don’t want to be left behind, I don’t want my dreams to stay incomplete, I don’t want to keep missing opportunities, and I’m tired of being in this limbo state of just letting life “happen to me.”
Sundial in my hand
I’m holding it to the sky, but it’s foggy again
I can’t read the time, so I’m stuck in a trance
When you’re trying to get out of a funk so badly but it feels like everything you are doing isn’t working, but you’re still trying anyway. I chose sundial as the symbol of this whoel song, because I really resonated with it’s simplistic yet unstable and a little bit unreliable nature. It works great if the sun is out, but if it’s foggy, it’s impossible to tell the time, and you’re stuck not knowing.
I can’t read the time, so I’m stuck in a trance
I’ve found this to be a theme in a lot of my songs: this dissociative/limbo state where things just don’t feel real and it doesn’t feel like your life is your own.
A little fun fact: “Garage,” the last song on the EP is placed right after “Sundial” because it ends this era with gratitude and the last lyrics are “I was lost,” which is a nod to “Sundial” being kind of completely in past tense.
Check out the song (and its inspirations) here!
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