Flowing with memories

BENGALURU: Some children may take to the sea and surf like a moth to flame but not Frizzell D’Souza. As a child, this singer-songwriter remembers loving her visits to the beaches of Goa while also being terrified of the waves. Her new single, Drown Away, captures all these mixed emotions and more that she feels about beach getaways. “I had irrational fears of drowning even in the shallow areas and would often hold my mum’s or sister’s hand to just step into the water.

The song encapsulates our entire journey of driving up to Goa in my dad’s car every year in December around Christmas. Interestingly, it was during these drives that I grew a liking for music,” says the 21-year-old student at RV College of Architecture. Her second single comes just months after her first one, called New, came out earlier this year. Incidentally, D’Souza began writing Drown Away before New. “It was this three-chord progression that made me feel extremely nostalgic, and these memories seemed to fit right into this melody.

I picked up a couple of old photo albums and went through footage that my dad recorded during those years to get a clearer picture. Then, it just seemed like the song wrote itself,” says the singer, who is also a cover artiste on YouTube. The new tune, which falls under the acoustic pop genre, has lyrics like: ‘She saw trees running back and forth and wondered why the sun would stay there/ It was cooler on the hills but closer to the sun, questions to ask and she didn’t know why,/ She held mamas hand and everything was okay.’

Behind these lines lie memories of swaying coconut trees, rocks on Vagator beach, or the feeling of being drenched in salty water with cold breeze brushing past, says D’Souza, and adds, “But the one that tops it all is where my mom tries getting me in to the water but I sprint back as soon as I see waves approaching.” The new single was produced in a studio unlike her first song, which was produced remotely. The writing process too had a different approach. Since New (which revolves around the fragility of aging love) was fictional, D’Souza could play around with the story.

“Drown Away, on the other hand, is a memoir of sorts and all I had to do was jot down the existing images in my head,” she says. All her original music has been managed by the artist collective, The Urban Weaver. Currently in the fourth year of her five-year degree, D’Souza has no plans to pursue full-time music post her graduation. She is pursuing online classes from Mangaluru and says her first year of college saw her following the stereotype of no time for anything outside academics. “This is a false belief that many architecture students are preached to in their initial years and one I want to break. You will always find time for the things you love without having to make compromises.”