With guitar notes that fall like rose petals, chords that rally one’s adrenaline glands for drama, and a voice that airily hovers over the landscape of music like slow passing clouds, Soundfly community member Isla Vidal’s newest track release “Tejedora” is just one of those songs you cannot miss.
But if that description of the song has your attention piqued, wait until you watch the music video!
The song was so good we added it to the June edition of our Spotify playlist, Office Listening, yet when I saw the video I knew I needed to chat with Isla Vidal (Julia Pryde Thompson) about the inspiration that led to this gorgeous work.
Q: Hey Julia, congrats on the new Isla Vidal single and video — it’s absolutely stunning both musically and visually. What was the inspiration for this song, “Tejedora?”
A: The inspiration from this song was the idea that we inherit all of these patterns, subconscious and conscious, from society at large but especially our families. Not all of these are healthy patterns, but we have the agency to weave new ones.
“Tejedora” is a practice in myth-making, like a hero’s journey, of a woman who becomes a weaver; placing that kind of practice alongside any other heroic concepts we might imagine.
And since I don’t speak Spanish, can you talk a bit about the lyrics in this song?
Sure! The lyrics of the song talk about two people, a mother and a daughter who are estranged having an oddly intimate conversation in a sort of strange cafe, an odd setting. But they are having the most honest conversation yet, and recognizing that their upbringings were similar. The chorus is the daughter talking about how she wants to undo these patterns that they both inherited and weave new ones from this point on. It’s a declaration and I guess, a promise.
What has been done does not have to echo (lines from the bridge).
“She wants to undo these patterns that they both inherited and weave new ones from this point on. It’s a declaration and I guess, a promise.”
How do the lyrics connect to the Rumi quote at the beginning of the video?
As I mentioned above, the song is imagining this new myth, where this main character decides to weave her own story, her own myth.
Can you talk about the themes of your video? What a beautifully shot piece of art. The theme of braided yarn is contrasting and striking in that bright red (it almost reminds me of unraveling a matador’s flag).
Haha that could definitely be interpreted, it’s about our inherited entanglement with those that come before us/alongside us. We are inextricably a part of a whole.
I’m also Cuban-American, and this song is a part of a larger story about my relationship with my mother, so Cuban color themes are definitely intentional.
Musically, you wrote and produced this track. How does that process usually unfold for you?
I actually wrote this song entirely on the guitar which I had never done before, the chorus came first. It started with a simple pattern, and then I had a dear friend Andre Agha who took this simple pattern and expanded it. So production came very last this time.
Anything else coming up in the future?
Yes! This song is the first track I’ve released of my first EP. The next single I’ll likely release in June and then hopefully the EP later this summer, early fall!
Play Your Heart Out!
Continue your learning adventure on Soundfly with modern, creative courses on songwriting, mixing, production, composing, synths, beats, and more by artists like Kiefer, Kimbra, Com Truise, Jlin, Ryan Lott, RJD2, and our newly launched Elijah Fox: Impressionist Piano & Production.
