featured image provided by Ella Gibson

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.

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Song Process

The initial idea that I had for this song was the image of a patchwork quilt, and I had written the phrase “patching it up” in my notes app on my phone. I also had the idea of “picking all the petals” of a flower until somebody loves and accepts you, as well as the fishbowl idea of feeling constantly on display for others, and was thinking a lot about how I respond to uncertainty and insecurity after trying to put the pieces of my life together. “Patch” was the first song I wrote after moving to college in 2023, which was during a period of time where I felt really lost in terms of my self-confidence. I sat down in my freshman dorm and forced myself to finish an entire song for my songwriting workshop class, and it ended up being “Patch!”

Lyrics

The lyrics flowed pretty naturally after I started writing, and melody and lyrics tend to be pretty symbiotic processes for me. I like coming up with melodies that go with a specific word, or like to make sure they flow together. I had a few lyrical ideas that I wanted to experiment with, like “the girl in a horror film” and “laying in the garden,” and in the lyrical journey as a whole, tried to replicate a familiar spiral I had when feeling unsure of myself.

Packed my life in a suitcase

Turned eighteen on a Tuesday

Working through my current work-in-progress

I actually turned 18 on a Friday, and was accepted to UCLA on the same day, but wanted to make the day seem more mundane or boring.

Growing tall like a giving tree

When everybody ask for bits and pieces

Put my heart on a silver platter like it’s a contest

Now I’ve hit the deep end

But I’ll keep close to the exit

I don’t wanna jinx it

But I think there’s something in me I haven’t found yet 

I think this is my favorite line in the song!

But oh, I can make it better

Try so hard, fight the storm that you weather

You know I can patch it all up

Everybody’s stepping stone but never enough, oh

I can lay in the garden

Pick all the petals til I’m everything you wanted 

I try, but the pains keep growing

I can dance around it just fine, mmm

The lyrics, “I can lay in the garden / Pick all the petals til I’m everything you wanted,” actually stemmed from another song I had written when I was around eleven years old! The song was called “Picking Petals” and it was about going back and forth with love and trying to change yourself to make someone love or accept you, which I thought was a common theme in this song too.

Like a girl in a horror film

Stuck on the outside watching myself 

Begging please don’t go in there

I’m just running in circles in this fishbowl

On display at every angle 

Tell me it’s nothing personal

Truth is you like me better 

When I take the fall

The line, “I’m just running in circles in this fishbowl,” goes along with the same feeling in the horror film line; about feeling like somebody is watching your every move and every mistake.

Think all my favorite movies lied

Cause the growing pains cut like a knife

And I know that they can see from every angle

Maybe it’ll fade eventually 

Everybody makes it look easy

When I feel myself unraveling a little

The line, “Think all my favorite movies lied,” is a shoutout to my favorite coming-of-age films, specifically Ladybird and The Edge of Seventeen. The line, “When I feel myself unraveling a little,” relates to the imagery of the quilt I’m “patching up” in the choruses, and feeling like the thread unravels.

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