sarya – i'll break my heart (so you don't have to): premiere

Listen to i'll break my heart (so you don't have to), the brand new single from Edinburgh-based poet and musician sarya

Feature by Tallah Brash | 18 Jan 2021
  • sarya

Edinburgh-based Taiwanese-American poet and singer-songwriter sarya thankfully came to our attention towards the end of 2020 when her track You Never Told Me featured on Paradise Palms’ Bonnie Tropical 5 compilation album, leading us to her brilliant take care of yourself EP. Having not previously heard of her, to discover that one of her tracks – i don’t know where i’m going but that’s okay – had been streamed over 170,000 times on Spotify was a trip.

sarya is an absolute master at capturing relatable feelings and emotions with her sublime lo-fi beats and exceptional lyricism, and i don't know where i'm going but that's okay was a phenomenal anthem for worriers everywhere, especially in 2020. We featured the track in our end of year Great Scots 2020 playlist back in December, and The Herald crowned it their favourite song of the year, which would have been a huge accomplishment for even the most seasoned of artists.

It is with great delight, then, that today we bring you the premiere of sarya’s brand new single, i’ll break my heart (so you don’t have to). With music and lyrics by sarya, bass by Callie Rose Petal, and mixing and mastering by Carlos Davey, you can listen to the track in the below SoundCloud player (click here if it's not displaying correctly).

Even before listening to the song, sarya’s ability to capture a mood with a song title alone had us excited, and the track doesn't disappoint. i’ll break my heart (so you don’t have to) is immediately familiar, and as far as soothing sad bops go, this could be exactly the thing to help you through the fog of an unrequited love, as sarya bends her feelings into positives, as she sings lines like: 'It's better to feel sadness and pain / Better than nothing at', and 'I'm happy to know you / And not expect anything'.

"This song was written at about 4am, when I admitted to myself that I had a crush for a friend of mine, and although the impossibility of realising that crush was depressing, but also kinda beautiful," sarya tells us of the track's beginnings. "We talk a lot about unrequited love, but we don't talk about how important the friendships that can come from those situations can be. I say the friend zone is the best zone!

"It is an absolute abomination that mainstream media has taken something so wonderful and made it into this undesirable and bitter arena that perpetuates unhealthy and toxic rules of attraction when it comes to rejection." sarya continues: "No one should ever owe you anything just because you have a crush on them, and feigning friendship in hopes of something more later on is a key reason why trust can be so hard when it comes to friendship.

“For me, queer platonic relationships are just as important as romantic ones," sarya continues, "and as someone on the ace spectrum, friendships are the foundation of the love I receive in my life. I'd rather quietly let my crush crackle away in the darkness so that I can let a friendship rise from its ashes, because I know it will last longer than most romantic connections that way.

"[i'll break my heart (so you don't have to)] is a song of acknowledgement, acceptance, and moving on, and having enough respect for yourself and your friend so that a deeper and longer-lasting love can develop where infatuation originally was." sarya concludes: "At the end of the day, I'm just happy to feel anything at all."


i'll break my heart (so you don't have to) is released on 19 Jan

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