Singapore’s Linying Returns With “Daylight Blows Into One Door,” Co-Written With Chris Walla
July 15, 2021 BY Nettwerk
Singaporean singer and songwriter Linying returns today with “Daylight Blows Into One Door,” reminding listeners of her penchant for moving lyricism and vivid production in this hypnotic ballad about happiness and loss. Co-written by Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie), “Daylight Blows Into One Door” is the first taste of Linying’s upcoming debut full-length album, details forthcoming.
She says of the song, “When I was 12, my pet rabbit Bunny lay dying in my lap as my brother and I sang Death Cab For Cutie’s ‘I Will Follow You Into The Dark’ to him on an acoustic guitar. Songs and books taught me perspective in sad times from a young age, but a sense of melancholy has always coloured even the happiest moments of my life. When I feel on top of the world is also when I remember that so much of the love and happiness that I think is mine is really only lent to me, to be taken back someday – momentary, like daylight.
I told Chris the gist of this in a tiny room in a New York studio where we wrote across two days while also taking too-long bagel breaks, walking the High Line and talking about panic and distance and love and home. I’m omitting a lot of the grisly details in which I struggle to behave normally in front of him while containing my excitement at working with a musical figure so important to my adolescence… it wasn’t until months later when I was home in Singapore that I looked over at the patio bench we sat on with Bunny, remembered that I’d just written a song about loss with the person who made the song I experienced my first loss to, and realised how much full-on, full-circle, cosmic conspiracy was actually going on.”
Linying’s confessional style of writing is vivid, vulnerable, and has earned her a Bon Iver comparison by NPR’s Bob Boilen. A departure from the polished world of Asian pop, Linying’s tender debut single, “Sticky Leaves”, first went viral on Spotify’s US, UK and Global charts. She was named one of Spotify Asia’s 25 Most Influential Artists Under 25. Her music has received praise from Billboard and BBC Radio 1 and has been featured on HBO’s Industry and Netflix’s Terrace House.
