THEA: When Suno recently introduced their new models, Chad started experimenting with styles to see what might be viable for us to use on our new material. I don’t quite recall how it happened, but he stumbled on this indie-sounding one using a female vocalist who sounds almost like a high school kid…so our discussion turned to the concerns of people much younger than we are. We kicked around topics (social media, etc.) and I think I’m the one who first mentioned how focused girls sometimes are on self-image and appearance, and how difficult that can be for the ones who are not as conventionally physically beautiful as others.

Chad has three daughters, so he’s not unfamiliar with girls experiencing pressure to look a certain way.

During our discussion, I asked him to generate this voice singing “I’m not the pretty girl/I’m not the beauty queen/you’ll never see my face/on a magazine” (he very slightly modified this to make it work better…and it does). The result sounded like the perfect pairing to me: this voice, this topic, these lyrics.

By the next day, Chad had the remaining 75% in place. We did our usual trimming,  fitting, and making improvements, and the very last thing we did was add the conclusion: “But I really like myself, so maybe that’s okay.” Because it needed that. Girls who feel this way typically develop other things that make them special, and if they like who they are in spite of not being as physically beautiful as someone else, that’s a win. And we wanted a win for this girl.

If you’re at all familiar with what we’ve been writing, you’ll recognize this is quite a departure for us. But what I like about that is a) it demonstrates that we have a fairly wide range and are capable of writing far outside what is typical for us, and b) it’s an important message, giving voice to young girls who struggle with this pressure—but concluding: “You still have so much value and you can still like yourself, even if you don’t think you can make yourself look like a model.”

And that’s a message girls have always deserved to hear.