Emerging alt-pop singer/songwriter DAMOYEE personally explores the topic of unrequited love in her ethereal new single, “To the Next One,” premiering exclusively with American Songwriter.
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A mellifluous melody greets one’s ears as you press play on “To the Next One,” DAMOYEE’s dreamy vocals feeling like a warm embrace. The ear-catching vibe doesn’t disguise the painstaking lyrics that tell the tale of a failed relationship that’s met with a feeling of hope on the other side.
“The song is really about what seems to be a never-ending cycle of being broken-hearted,” DAMOYEE expresses to American Songwriter of how she’s been through the process of falling for someone, “only to realize too far in emotionally that we don’t share the same feelings and he’s not reciprocating a similar energy. I believe unrequited love is a shared human experience, something unfortunate that we may all go through at least once in our lives.”
The lyrics follow a young woman’s real-life struggles with dating. DAMOYEE says she got the idea for the song while having a conversation with a close friend about a series of relationships she’s gone through as a college student at Berklee College of Music. Part of what makes this song unique is that the singer plays all of the instruments on the track, which includes electric bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and synths. DAMOYEE didn’t intend to record all the instruments herself, but the fact that the song came about “spontaneously” put her in the position to expand her production skills.
“One night I was working on music and something made me think back to the conversation that first inspired me to write the song,” she recalls. “I recorded everything on my own in the moment when I was alone.”
Recording “The Next One” was a solitary process, one that she fully embraced, knowing she wanted the track to be “electronically driven” in an effort to “challenge” herself as a producer, while still incorporating live instruments that are commonplace on her songs. “I try not to think too much in advance about which [instruments] I should be playing and play more of what I feel as I go along building the track so that the end result can feel really organic and authentic to me and what I was feeling in the moment,” she explains of her process.
She holds true to this in “To the Next One,” a song she calls “very personal.” She co-wrote the lyrics with friend and fellow singer-songwriter Lanif Azcona. DAMOYEE went through a bout of writer’s block when Azcona came in and suggested that she pull from personal experiences “to give the song more meaning than just one isolated experience,” DAMOYEE describes. This led to her crafting autobiographical lyrics that made the song “brutally honest.”
The verses see reflections of her ex in the details he left behind, like the scent of his cologne in her towel and his worn-out necklace. Shoulda kept it so you could come back, but you never did, no, she sings with gentle vocals. The second verse includes the lyrics DAMOYEE identifies as the most personal, singing, but you’re only looking up and down my body / No reciprocation of my energy, that was based on a true experience, along with the pre-chorus I’ve been here before / Love never works in my favor. The chorus finds her rejecting defeat as she sings, Don’t care if I’m broken by the next one / Maybe if I move on to the next one.
“Sometimes things don’t work out the way I hope or plan, but I choose to stay optimistic and true to who I am until my perfect match comes along. They’re out there somewhere,” the self-scribed “die- hard hopeless romantic” conveys. “If someone isn’t for you, don’t try to push it. Listen to your intuition and save yourself early from potential heartbreak. At the same time, always try to keep an open mind. If one relationship doesn’t work out, just move on to the next one.”
DAMOYEE got to experience the impact of her music firsthand when a fan sent her a direct message on Instagram after a show observing that “people are more receptive to songs about loving other people than they are to songs about loving themselves.” The comment deeply resonated with the singer, who hopes that her music provides as much healing for others as it does for her.
“For me as an artist, being able to channel my experiences and emotions into my music, it helps the other side of me, as a person, be able to process those experiences and emotions,” she professes. “I really write about my personal experiences and it’s always such a bonus when people who hear my music can relate. I hope with this song that I’m able to offer something through my music that will help someone with their personal life, not necessarily with an action they should take, but maybe needing to sit and reflect on what happened in order to process it more freely and in a healthy way.”
“To the Next One” is available now.
Photo Credit: DAMOYEE/Courtesy of Big Feat PR
