On each of my albums, there is a song that no one notices. At first.
On Can’t Clip My Wings it was We Don’t Speak of Her. On Answers No Questions it was Keep it Close On I’m Too Old to Die Young it was Can I be Saved.
These are my underdog songs. They are like the children always chosen last in that brutal school ritual of captains choosing their teams. (Shameful disclosure - I was good at sports and my competitiveness always beat my compassion, diversity be damned, I wanted the winners on my team).
In the days after these albums were released, loyal listeners sent me kind messages, often telling me which song they liked best. A few songs were popular with many, but the richness of human experience meant most songs were chosen by someone. Except for the underdog song. No one noticed it. No one loved it. At first.
It upset me, a little. Not too much. When you release art into the world it starts its own journey, alone. That’s the deal. You might get a postcard now and then. You might put in a word, here and there, to help them along. But what people make of it is no longer your business.
And I came to understand these songs had bigger hurdles than their siblings. They were handicapped. Not in an absent limb way. More akin to those Paralympic events where you aren’t sure what the disability is.
They are not different enough to attract listeners searching for ‘different’. They are not wearing loud clothes or making outrageous claims. They are sitting quietly in the corner, wearing mismatched shoes. Just a bit off. An unusual key change, an uncomfortable semitone, a catch in the rhythm, an unsettled structure, a vague dissonance that makes you zone out until the next, more obviously attractive song arrives.
Why would I write such songs?
Why would a second-generation immigrant, ethnic minority, Muslim heritage, female scientist, find themselves mired in being just a bit off?
Sooner or later
Weeks, sometimes months after the album release, I will get an email like this:
Dear Nazneen,
Thank you for your wonderful music. I wanted you to know I still listen to Can’t Clip My Wings often. I play it whenever people come over for dinner and someone always asks what it is. I’m really liking We Don’t Speak of Her at the moment it is so true and poignant.
And slowly, slowly, my underdog song will start to get attention.
It makes me so happy, for my little song.
And it gives me hope that if you keep showing up, doing your thing, with heart and integrity, that sooner or later it will get noticed.
Freedom
Today I want to share with you the underdog song from Together Apart —Freedom. I knew it would be the underdog song as soon as Oscar and I repeatedly failed to agree which was the A melody line and which was the B melody line, (usually this is obvious). The confusion of the melodic structure is compounded lyrically because the point-of-view (stay in / go out) switches from verse one to verse two. As an alleviation, a battle cry, and another oddity, the chorus is one word, ‘Freedom’, repeated. There are, of course, many improbable harmonies. A final accommodation for my loyal listeners is that the music is based on a trap loop; not piano, or guitar.
I should make clear that, other than the trap loop being the starting point, none of the above were calculated choices. I wrote the song as we were emerging from lockdown in May 2020, when confusion about the right choices was the only consensus.
This is as true now as it was then.
And perhaps that is why, months after Together Apart was released, people have started telling me that Freedom is a song they keep coming back to.
So here it is. I hope you enjoy it or at least find it worth your notice.
Lyrics
Stay home, stay safe, stay alive
What’s the point of living
Lost in a prison
Stay home, stay safe, stay alive
Could we be hurting
More than we’re serving
Stay home, stay alive
So little money
So many worries
Freedom
Lock down, go to ground, make it count
Having a life
Is more than being alive
Lock down, go to ground, make it count
Is it an answer
This unsticky plaster
Lock down, make it count
It’s too hard
Being apart
Freedom
What’s the way back
Freedom
What’s the way out
Freedom
I just wanna be free
Freedom
Is it safe out there
Is it safe in here
Is it safe
Restart, be smart, a la carte
Going too fast
Might squander the past
Restart, be smart, a la carte
Could we be hurting
More than we’re serving
Restart, a la carte
Short-term gain
For your endless pain is
Not Freedom
Don’t hide, go outside, or your fired
Having a life is
Not having to die
Don’t hide, go outside, or your fired
Is it an answer
This unsticky plaster
Don’t hide, go outside
Is a quick fix
Worth the risk
Freedom
I just wanna be free (what’s the way back)
Freedom
I just wanna be free (what’s the way out)
Freedom
I just wanna be free
Freedom
What's the way back
What’s the way out
Is it safe out there
Freedom
—Freedom
— —Freedom
Probably there is an underdog in your life, something a bit unusual, that you make or love or support. Something that doesn’t ‘fit’ with the rest of you, that others might find a bit off. Or maybe this describes you. Maybe you identify as an underdog.
Just keep doing your thing.
Just keep showing up.
They’ll notice.
Yours hopefully,
Nazneen xxxx
Yours Hopefully is a weekly experiment in living hopefully. With songs. Why not subscribe and get a post every Sunday in your inbox?