Singer-songwriter Tara Van of Toronto is sharing a blend of chamber folk and pop entitled “Things I Wanna Say,” a horn inflected and subtly percussive dance with the vulnerability that can arise when your feelings present themselves before you’re necessarily ready to share or feel certain about them.

Produced by Mark Calderone, “Things I Wanna Say” glides along gently, evoking the feeling of a summer breeze as Van explores the feeling of trying to protect yourself along with the playfulness and competition between partners during the stand off of “who exposes themselves first.”

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

‘Things I Wanna Say’ was born out of an experience where I casually said ‘Love you’ to a relatively new partner when I was leaving the climbing gym. Both of our eyes kinda bugged out for a second and I proceeded to go home and freak out. That had never happened to me before, just blurting the words out like that. I felt deeply uncomfortable and exposed. I also felt confused about whether I did in fact love them or not. Never before had my mouth done such a complete hijacking. The song expresses the vulnerability of exposing yourself before you are ready to do so and the anxiety associated with trying to navigate complicated emotions.

This song felt like a bit of a departure and I wanted to celebrate that with a video presentation. Moving to video with my previous single ‘Glow’ was a big step for me because it was a lot more exposure and it really felt like putting myself out there, which was terrifying. With ‘Glow’ because it’s such a feel-good empowerment track I think it was much easier and it was a good gateway into storytelling through video. With ‘Things I Wanna Say’ I was a lot more vulnerable. The song itself is all about vulnerability and I really wanted to express that in the video, which required me to let people into very private moments and let them be a fly on the wall. That was very scary to let out into the world but I think I had the confidence to do it because of doing ‘Glow’ first, all of the personal growth and development I have undergone in recent years and because of the incredible artists I’ve been working with. It takes a lot of trust to expose yourself in that way in front of the camera, when I was younger and doing creative things like this I would fully dissociate and just be a body performing in a room. Putting yourself into your performance is the most important piece for connecting with an audience but also the hardest thing to do, especially if you have had traumas in your life that taught you to withdraw into yourself like my past with severe school bullying and abusive relationships. Meeting my friend and collaborator Mark Calderone and before that my other wonderful friend and producer Malory Torr have been game-changers for me. I think in artistry who you surround yourself with is so important. The video came out as beautifully as it did because of the deep trust and confidence I feel in the professionalism and friendship of my two collaborators on this video, my producer Mark Calderone and Keston Martinez of Kesteeze Media who I actually met and was good friends with back in high school. There is a lot of competitiveness, hostility, manipulation and exclusivity in the arts mostly due to scarcity culture and I really wanted no part of all of that. All I’ve really wanted was to be able to create in a safe space with like-minded people and it took time to find those people and also for me to feel comfortable and confident enough to share myself. I’ve always had a very rich internal world and I’m trying to let it touch my external world now.

2.What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

The visuals with the song are captured in very private moments like the bath and half nude in bed. This is important to the message of the song because the listener is taken into the artist’s inner world, these are moments that were not meant to be shared with others. The video also has a lot of partial nudity which speaks to how exposed you feel after showing a piece of yourself before you were ready to and how vulnerable you now feel. The staircase also has a kind of message itself as you are trying to understand your own emotions and are divided in your feelings. At the beginning of the video you are close to the top of the stairs feeling seemingly pretty confident in your feelings but then you start unravelling and descending the stairs. You then go to the bath to self regulate(which is in reality one of the best ways I have found in my life to relax and self regulate). From the bath you are then kind of taken into a bit of a fantasy, rolling around in bed in lust and internal struggle. The return to the bath is returning to self soothing and regulating. The final moment of sinking into the water symbolizes cleansing yourself and quieting your brain. Nothing quite like going under water to quiet the noise and chaos of life.

3.What was the process of making this video?

We shot the video in one afternoon and we were lucky enough to have the space become available for us to use. I had an initial idea with the bathtub being the centerpiece but like with the last video for ‘Glow’ it was very much in the moment, collaborative and experimental. Mark, Keston and I all threw ideas out there and tried different things out and mostly had a lot of fun! We used a few different cameras and many different angles to get all the footage and once we set things up really I just freestyled to the lyrics same as with ‘Glow’. It was pretty easy for me to get into character because I’ve been seeing someone again recently so all the feelings felt very fresh.