“Before”-NIKI
Here’s a not
so happily-after-ever ballad born from a dorm-room college crush and all the
emotions related to an unrequited deep love and depressing loss. NIKI takes you
there by digging deep into her own recent all-too-real personal past by piecing
together her pain through poetry.
Some have drawn parallels between this track and
Olivia Rodrigo’s breakthrough break-up confessional “Drivers License” from last
year, but… “Before” is a zillion-times better. Sure, NIKI comes across
vulnerable and melancholy, but also raw and direct with a composition more
complete and complex.
It’s an all-too-familiar fractured fairytale. After
those post-break-up blues settle into the quietest part of your heart, your
hippocampus jumps into overdrive, pulling-up memories in a non-linear fashion, quickly
jumping from highs to lows back to highs sprinkled with flashes of how-comes
and what-ifs. While listening closely to NIKI’s lyrics, that’s how “Before” appears
to have been written.
NIKI – who began writing the song while in her
late-teens -- explained, "'Before' is the irresolute ending to my very first
love story. I wrote it as a means to create the kind of closure I never had.
While researching NIKI (born Nicole Zefanya), I
discovered she’s been a fan of Taylor Swift. Learning this, I’m almost certain a
good chunk of her inspiration came from “All Too Well” which details Swift’s own
doomed relationship.
From start to finish, “Before” is a four-minute
audio-book set to music detailing her other-side-of-the-world long-distance (Indonesia/US
East Coast) ill-fated relationship.
“I just flew across the globe/Twenty-two hours just to see you…"
And in NIKI’s case, her heart is like a ticking
time bomb. Before they part for the last time, her thoughts obsessively
calculate ways to remedy the rescinding romance by surrendering self-esteem
while considering becoming that person your future-ex wanted you to be.
“Yeah, we've got forty-eight hours left/Before I fly back to my death…"
But, the affair’s autopsy revealed the romance to have
been DOA from the start.
“Did anything ever really count/Or was I just a two-year practice round?/You were all I'd ever known/And now I'm feeling stupid, you're forbidden…"
With time, NIKI knew exactly what to do when
handed a load of lemons. She stated, “This project is without a doubt my most
favorite thing I have ever made as an artist. It’s where younger me and current
me meet and hang and have a fucking blast together."
“Before” will be part of NIKI’s album Nicole
which arrives August 12, 2022.
