Lisa Remar’s bone-chilling new single, “Ride”—premiering below—finds the New York singer-songwriter, producer, and pianist doing two very brave things: 1) facing difficult feelings, and 2) jumping out of a toxic dude’s car.
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“‘Ride’ started as a simple bassline/melody that [my co-writer and co-producer] Kaveh Rastegar and I made during a quick session,” Remar tells American Songwriter over email.
“Later that week I got into a screaming fight with a toxic person that had wronged me time and time again. The fight caused me to Ladybird out of his car (Ladybird—verb. to jump out of a moving vehicle and escape berating driver). An unpleasant and traumatic experience [inspired] the lyrics for this vibey bass track. It felt like word vomit that serendipitously landed perfectly into the structure Kaveh and I came up with.”
Remar’s vocals are soulful and luminous as they skate over atmospheric instrumentation (Hany Zayan contributes backing vocals, Trevor Jarvis contributes cello, and Henry Webster contributes violin). Mixed by Colton Eatman, the track was produced by Remar, Rastegar, and Marton Bisits.
“Been holding back these tears all week,” Remar sings in the opening verse, signaling the emotional release to come. “Now I’m crying so loud / said some things you didn’t mean / you’re just letting me down.” The Ladybird move comes a little bit later, in the chorus: “Still you’re riding out the open roads / soon you’ll fly into the ocean floor / so keep riding out the open roads / a deep breath before I drop and roll.”
“Ride” comes on the heels of Remar’s latest single “Halfway to Nowhere” and arrives with a lyric video, featured below. Both tracks will appear on a larger forthcoming project.
“When I wrote the first single ‘Halfway to Nowhere,’” says Remar, “I didn’t realize that I was working towards an EP of eight songs that sonically have various common threads but all sound a bit contradictory… The eight tracks on the record were just the songs I liked the most out of the many, many songs I’d written.”
“The songs dip into different genres,” the New York City-based musician continues, “but they still make sense to me as a unit—they represent where I was creatively, musically, and personally. None of these tracks were made with an audience in mind. The EP is called STILL GOOD and is named after the intro song which I thought was fitting because it talks about the root of all my inner turmoil. The rest of the EP basically reiterates this emotional chaos based on specific life events.”
“Ride” may have stemmed from that inner turmoil or emotional chaos, but it has a resilient arc: “I know you’re worried,” Remar sings in the bridge, “but I’ll be okay.”
“Ride” is out December 8. You can stream and download it here.
