[Review] Nara Zarr – Pride “The lyrics are the gateway to the song’s essence”
‘Pride’ is a song that touches on an important topic from a seemingly personal perspective but one that is likely to reach out and connect with any number of people who hear it, and in fact with anyone who has any mild awareness of the difficulties certain people or groups of people face for simply being who they are. The musicality of the piece is beautiful, teetering between the organic and the full on rock and roll sound, there’s a striking move from the gentle to the intense, more than once within the song, and this helps magnify the value and passion of the lyrics.
The lyrics are the gateway to the song’s essence, to the reason it was written and to the emotion that can be heard in the leading vocalist’s own performance. They hold nothing back, and that’s a great way of reiterating how crucial it is that everyone gets to experience the very simple right to be exactly who they are. The verse melody is simple yet effective in listing and laying out the scene. The transition from here to the hook rises beautifully, and you catch those all important lines about love right at the peak of the musical climax. From here on in, the lyrics continue to offer personal truth, expletives and all, and this furthers the connection and the authenticity of it all.
It’s a really well written song and the sound is primarily quite organic, so a live show is likely to satisfy and strike audiences in a similar if not more powerful manner. In terms of production, the vocal is little low within the mix, sometimes making it difficult to catch certain lyrics. In a way, this brings the song into the synth-pop quarter along with a number of recent indie bands, but on the other hand the lyrics are so powerful that it’s important to hear them and to be able to familiarise yourself with them.
By Rebecca Cullen
Rebecca is a Musician and writer from Manchester, UK, with an MA in Song Writing
