Singled Out: Ivy Ryann's The Show

Keavin Wiggins | 03-05-2022

photo credit: Hillary Paige Photography courtesy Skye Media

Ivy Ryann just released her new album, "A Nonaggressive Extreme Violation of Boundaries," and to celebrate we asked her to tell us about the song "The Show." Here is the story:

A lot of people ask me how long it takes me to write a song or what the average time I spend on a song is. I never really know how to answer that question because I have songs that took me years to drag across the finish line and others that just poured out in a matter of hours or days. "The Show" was one of those songs that poured out in a day. Or at least I had all of the chords and lyrics written, and I was automatically happy with it. For me, that's pretty rare.

When I sat down and wrote this song, I really was just messing around with my guitar. I didn't have an "agenda" or any plans to sit down and write a song that day. I was processing a lot of self-hatred and battling pretty hard with my inner critic. I ended up singing the line "Be kind, be gentle, be soft" over and over again to myself and that inner critic. That line became the really simple chorus of this song.

The verses followed suit and just started flowing pretty easily. I had just started going to therapy and was learning about having a kind inner dialogue. So I started writing verses to myself as a part of that practice. Lyrics like, "Don't be afraid. I won't make you go. The kind of fear that holds you, you call it the show" were my best attempts at telling myself I would stop forcing myself to just keep pushing past my anxiety or depression and stop putting on a show for people when I simply didn't have the energy for that. The song, in its entirety, became a "note to self" or maybe a promise to try and be more kind, gentle, and soft in the ways that I think about/talk about myself.

The song was done in one day and was incredibly simple. I knew I wanted to keep it simple and immediately called my producer. I told him I had a song I wanted to record that week while it was fresh and raw, and that I didn't want to add anything super flashy to it. It ended up being one of the easiest songs to put together even during the recording process. The entire process of writing, recording, and mixing this song was therapeutic for me. Of all the songs on my album, this one soothes me the most and I still feel it "wash over" me when I listen to it. That's really what I hope everyone gets to experience when they listen to this track off the record. I hope it "washes over" its listeners and provides some calm and reassurance.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album here