“Life is hard, especially these days,” laments Grace Pettis, one third of the Austin pop/Americana band Nobody’s Girl. “There are lots of triggers and stressors. But every day, we’re getting up again, working from home, taking care of our families, finding moments of joy, and trying not to drink that extra glass of wine.”
Videos by American Songwriter
This constant rat race that often results in that feeling of endless hopeless defeat is the subject of their latest single “Tiger,” which “celebrates the strength and discipline that takes, and the women and men winning that fight, one day at a time. If we can’t tame the tiger, we can at least hold him back for a while, even if he hollers.”
Tackling the helpless pressure under a boss’ thumb and the unchecked rage that bubbles under the surface, “Tiger” recants that feeling of being invisible and unnoticeable… a mere cog in a proverbial machine. “We wanted a song for all those moments when you want to say something or do something — when that impulse flickers across your mind — basically to do something you might regret (or maybe even feel proud of later),” says BettySoo. “There are those moments when you’re barely holding it in, barely holding it together.”
A precautionary tale of a time bomb just waiting to be set off, Nobody’s Girl tackles the subject of the anonymity of corporate life, where you struggle to make a mark but remain invisible. “Never met my neighbors / And I’ve been here seven years / If I died tonight, would anybody care?,” the trio harmonize, their voices blending perfectly into a unified merge.
“When we started writing this song, I think we were a little nervous about it at first (at least I was!),” says Rebecca Loebe. “As women in this current moment of the culture, I think there’s a lot of pressure to focus on gratitude, to the extent that we often don’t allow ourselves to even acknowledge what it is that is bothering us as we go through our day. Once we started talking about how rage can slowly build up and bubble over internally it felt like a very universal, yet infrequently discussed, topic – and that’s when we knew we had to write about it. I think this is the first time any of us have really tackled this particular thorny topic in this exact way.”
It’s a dark topic that may surprise fans who may be more familiar with the band’s poppier roots, but for Nobody’s Girl, it’s a topic worth exploring. “Facing down those moments can sometimes fly by without us really noticing, but sometimes they can really make you think about who you are, whether you’re living the way you want to, whether you’ve made the right choices to get you where you are,” adds BettySoo.
“We wrote ‘Tiger’ for those of us trying to keep it together; keep our emotions and our “crazy” at bay, knowing we’re ‘just one reason away’ from losing that control,” concludes Grace. “There are plenty of songs about getting angry and responding with aggression. And there are plenty of songs about taking it easy and not letting anything bother you. ‘Tiger’ is not either of them.“
