december 31, 2020

 

re: the song

okay! here’s the obligatory single write-up. this song is very personal to me, so i wanted do this super right or not at all. at first i was being hella wordy on here, then i deleted everything. i guess the main thing i wanna say is: 2020 has been a fucking rollercoaster, and to me, this song is a summation of not only this year, but my life up until the point of writing it. including the recording of my mom on YWSYLS made the song complete for me. i hear her voice in my head all the time; her messages from God and stern advice echo in my ears whenever i’m at a crossroads. maybe this song can create the same feeling of comfort for someone else. that’s the hope, anyway. :-)

big thank you to walt for producing this song. you snapped & i cried when i wrote it lol. thank you steph for mixing it. i think this final version is, like, #647, so the patience is hella appreciated.

re: the music video

like a lot of people, i get sad for no reason. i could just wake up in a funk. a bad thing doesn’t have to happen for me to feel shitty. there doesn’t always need to be a direct trigger. sometimes it feels like i won a day, sometimes it feels like i lost it—no matter how hard i fought to win. sadness has hands too.

thank you to my director, keitaro, for making this video look exactly like i wrote it. you the best! from shooting to post-production, you really carried out the entire vision. thank you to my lovely friends jite, natasha, ken, jay, walt, & costi for being apart of it. amazing actors, fucking naturals. and shout out to my manager jaz for driving us around and letting me use your very cute bike that you built and customized yourself. and for just being the shit and helping me release this the way i wanna.

bts by jay will

YWSYLS (prod. walt mansa) lyrics

08/14/20 1:57 pm

you win some you lose some

outcomes been gruesome

i take my cues from

what i know

tried hard to keep right

home before street lights

learned how to rewrite

all my codes

sometimes what u grow wit

ain’t always what u go wit

circumstances made me what i am

and then i changed

i feel like i’m smoking

candy-coated opiates

perfect chance is now for me to heal 

these growing pains 

you win some you lose some

outcomes been gruesome

i take my cues from

what i know

tried hard to keep right

home before street lights

learned how to rewrite

all my codes

(mom):

the good always outweigh the bad. people can’t dwell pon the bad, bad part of tings. they will never get past that stage of them life. they will stuck in that rut. get past the bad, man. let the good outweigh the bad. at all times.

i don’t wanna pretend

that i’m all good on my end

but i learned how to be my own friend

yeah i learned how to be my own friend

i don’t wanna pretend

that i’m all good on my end

but i learned how to be my own friend

yeah i learned how to be my own friend

you win some you lose some

i take my cues from

tried hard to keep right

i learned to rewrite