'pollyanna' behind the scenes #3 - ββΛ.β throwback ββΛ.β
(also on bandcamp & streaming services)
β intro β
Welcome back, weary traveler, to the 'pollyanna' behind the scenes blog! By now we have covered both 'hypocrite' and 'superpower', which served as the proper start to the album, illustrating the first meeting Mimi and Polly have, as well as Polly's backstory! And some of our own personal ventings, of course.
This time around, we're talking about 'throwback'. This song is possibly the most important to me thus far, and so is the story that comes with it, both in the context of the album, and my own life. This is gonna be a hefty one, lol.
art by the lovely Vessel3! check out their art @/ribcageroom.monster
β story β
I feel like the best place to start this song is the context in the 'story' of the album that surrounds the song!
A week after the fateful day where Mimi and Polly first meet in the beginning of the album, Mimi goes about her life as usual. A bit of a reminder, or a recap if we may: Mimi is an alien! Unknowing of her origins, she's had to grow up as a human her whole life. She doesn't necessarily want to embrace her roots though, either. Every single day she goes out, she puts on earmuffs that hide her antennae (the heart shaped ears you see in all the art pieces!) that give her a look almost akin to a dog (as much as she denies it, she really enjoys it). I wonder if that plot thread will go anywhere...
Anyways! Mimi is a character that is very hurt. Along her childhood, she's been messed with by a lot of awful people in her life, and as a result, she's very distrusting and scared of most new people who offer to enter her life. This doesn't fare well when she meets a girl going by the name 'Dia' while clubbing one night, who takes a great interest in Mimi, as the two decide soon to date months later. This happens before the events of the album, by the way.
(Slight note! Mimi doesn't necessarily make music, as she paints in her free-time when she's not running shifts at her job, or messing around online. When she has time off though, she goes clubbing frequently!)
Pretty frequently, over the course of the next two months, Mimi would keep seeing this girl, as the two dressed in poppy, loud, outfits, and headed to locations in the city they both lived in nearly daily after the sun set. I'd like to think that eventually, Mimi reveals to Dia her alien origins, as she starts to take off her muffs around her, Dia learning about Mimi's secret affinity to being a dog.
One night, as the two begin to get more romantic and intimate than usual, Mimi asks if she could step outside for a bit to think. She realizes, in the heat of the moment, that she's still affected by her upbringing, having an immediate PTSD/trauma reaction to the way she was confronted about getting more romantic.
Mimi, just like to her therapist in 'hypocrite', is terrified to open up, opting instead to distance herself from Dia in fear of worse moments occuring in their relationship. **Without yet breaking things off**, Mimi ends up subconsciously avoiding the situation in a desperate attempt to run away from her own issues that the world is YELLING at her to confront. She opts to only text with Dia for a while, eventually by the next time she visits, telling her that it might not be a good idea if they date, calling herself a mess that can't be fixed, and denying the ability to grow and change.
Mimi feels almost eternally cursed to keep tripping over her trauma, not realizing that the solution is to finally open herself up. The notion is terrifying however, as it requires the brave step of self-acceptance and kindness.
The night after she breaks up, she decides to write a poem that she wants to turn into a painting, frequently running it by Polly, as through the Backend, she reads Mimi's notes.
that poem becomes throwback.
the night Mimi and Dia broke up.
β background β
The real context of this song acts as an unintentional response, once more, to the lyrical content of 'open me'. I wrote this song after breaking up with my own ex-partner, somebody I was dating for a bit at the end of 2023 before realizing that I had not still healed from my relationship from a few years before, the same relationship that had highly influenced our thoughts, feelings, and writings on the last album. Once again, I had pretended that I had recovered from issues plaguing my past, but instead ended up realizing I had yet to fix anything.
Throwback was written as I felt like despite nearly everything I said to him about my true feelings, I couldn't equivalently express the complicated feelings of self-loathing I had felt in the time since, mixed with the feelings of love I still had for the person, despite the fact I was scared of the feelings I had when we were together, feeling like my ability to be a good partner was tainted by the person who hurt me in the past.
I, in my real life, also ran away at first, wanting to hide away from the rest of the world, and metaphorically cover myself in grass and rosy colors.
"Oh, it hurts, if I locked myself away a little longer Taking in nature's embrace makes it much harder If I wrapped myself in grass and bright sun glare Would you even see me anywhere"
I think a strong theme, and feeling I've had at least since the end of middle school/start of my high school years (2020) was that I felt like I'd give anything to 'become unimportant'. I feel partly like the therianism that persists in our system, and by extension, POLYANA as a project, stems from the very real feeling that comes with wanting to become an animal.. wanting to escape from daily issues by becoming a helpless bunny or dog, or whatever can go escape and frolick through the fields endlessly, not caring about what's happening in the world at any given moment.
It's not even necessarily an accurate descriptor of what these animals go through, but it's a lovely sounding pipe-dream in the moment.
I think for Mimi (the character), that same sensation exists. In a situation so intense and scary, and full of pain, she wishes she could lock herself in her room, or fall asleep in a wide field of flowers, essentially devolving into the animal she's always wanted to be.. in some sense of the word.
I liked the idea that perhaps the animal Mimi initially wanted to metaphorically be is a bunny (a small prey animal)... later finally blooming as a dog, an animal that is as self sufficient as dependent it can be for it's partners. The sensation of being 'smaller' stays, though. It's just about how healthy the 'smallness' is felt, and enacted.
I think the only other thing I haven't mentioned so far is that the "throwback" is very hugely those PTSD moments where I'd be in an unfamiliar situation, and immediately jump to fear of the worst, feeling like everything happening was a cycle (right back to the whole theme of cycles).
'Will we still be friends?' I genuinely had no clue at the time.
β throwback sessions β
Did you know throwback was nearly scrapped from pollyanna? yeah! it was! I had made this demo, actually BEFORE I had even started on hypocrite, and this was the first try & attempt at the sound of 'pollyanna'. It's a suuuuper scuffed version of throwback, but the entire song is, in fact, there.
About a month this was in the tracklist of the album, until I decided initially on removing it (superpower was initially going to transition into money song for a few months! wow!) until one morning in April of 2024, when I got bored and decided that I'd try and give this song one more shot.
That 1 hour session changed the entire song, as the beat felt much more 'complete'.
Over the next week, I wrote the lyrics for the song, put down a rough take, and the song, while super rough, existed as a finished demo that i let be for a while! It just felt right, even if some refinements had to be made, obviously.
I was actually quite stuck on the hook for this one, too. After about a week of not knowing where to go melodically with the hook of the song, I threw throwback over to Lizzy! (lizzy's personal army). She came back mere hours later with an almost identical version of the hook that made it onto the album. Her advice and motivation helped this album reach the finish line, for real. One of the sweetest people I've ever had the chance to meet and work with, always.
I remember in the first night I attempted to work on the song, I was scrolling through Splice, when I found a peculiar Moment pack that had a really, really pretty melody (if you want to find it, the sample is 'MO_PHR_160_synth_loop_analog_brass_Amaj.wav' from the phritz pack.), and I thought it'd be a really fantastic backing melody for the song.
A few months later, when I reworked the instrumental of the song, I decided to simplify this loop into a very, very simplistic chiptune rendition of the melody.. after hearing it, I felt like something clicked and felt perfect. That melody became the melodic motif for nearly the entire Pollyanna album.
(fun fact!: the yap in the beginning of throwback is from the homie miramira! This was an excerpt from some voice messages where she was trying to remember lyrics from the song βSubaruβ from Open Me. I thought it was fun so I put it in the intro of the song)
Finally, throwback became the song it is now, as per usual, when Ellie became a part of the album. One of my fondest moments from the sessions for this album were the nights when Ellie was mixing throwback. Nights spent just trying to get the sound of the song right, paying off when we both heard that lovely final mix that you hear on the album. It was the most important learning experience for both me and Ellie, I think.
I was so scared to record the final take for this song, specifically. This song felt so important to me as an artist, and it was a moment where I was scared of declaring a vocal take as 'final'. I let that perfectionist mindset control me, to the point where I couldn't even let myself record the song! At first, I was nearly going to include that shitty vocal take from the original demo on the final mix! But I remember Ellie motivating me to not overthink the process, open up the DAW, and record the vocals. They knew that I had it in me to record the perfect take. The next morning, I opened my laptop, thought "fuck it, let's give it a try", and within the timeframe of exactly 40 minutes, I knocked out the vocals for the entire song. The euphoria and relief I felt recording that final take welled up to the point I spent the end of the final take yelling incoherently, lol. A bit of that take was kept in, becoming the outro of the song ('let's fucking go! yeah!')
