We could all use some positive stories right now, so here’s one from Susan Darvishi.
Picture this: two strangers fall in love at a bar in New York, but it turns into a missed connection scenario. Although they didn’t exchange phone numbers, there were photos of one another taken. They were frantically looking for each other, and ended up returning to the same bar the next night. They managed to reunite right there, while holding polaroids of one another!
It’s a dream-like scenario, and something you might even see in a movie. But it’s the story featured in Susan Darvishi’s new single “Polaroid,” out today. “I love rom coms, and I also have a side of me who just loves film in general,” she admits. “When I write certain songs, sometimes they’re what I’d want to see in a film personally… and I love writing stories.”
Such a thing playing out in person seems like “goals af,” doesn’t it? To Susan, it’s also a small reflection of the reality she perceives. “It was a bit of my imagination mixed with what I thought New York kind of represents,“ she shared. “I lived in New York for five years, and I met someone new almost every week. In my head, I thought it would be a cute story if people just fell in love randomly one night at a bar… but then they lost each other, and they had to reunite for a photo they took.”
It’s a small world, but New York City is huge. You never really know who you’ll bump into, and what kind of impact they’ll leave on your life. Some things are just meant to be, and so was Susan’s musical journey. Growing up, Susan had a huge interest in music. She found herself listening to artists like the Bee-Gees and Celine Dion in the car, and wanted to be able to sing their songs too. She recalled singing loudly throughout her home every morning, even “to the point where it would annoy people.” At the time, it hadn’t even occurred to Susan that singing was something she could pursue long-term. “I never thought of it as even an option to be a career,” she mentioned. “I kind of just did it because it was therapeutic, and it was my thing that I did alone in my room.” Susan loved writing too, and even had an interest in becoming an author at one point. So, music allowed for both of her worlds to collide!
“I really started writing songs in high school,” she pinpointed. “Songs are essentially poems, but originally they were a little bit more formal, and I was scared to write personal things. As I grew up, I became more and more comfortable, and I’d write all the time. I’d use my computer and take these really crappy videos of myself singing songs with no background music. Eventually I learned a little bit of guitar, and I’d record those and write the songs down. It became something that I just couldn’t live without.”
After high school, Susan went off to NYU, unsure of what she truly wanted to pursue. She still hadn’t realized that being a singer was something she could actually make happen – in fact, she didn’t even know where to start. She figured a “desk job” would be the way to go, so she decided to study computer science. In one of her classes, she ended up meeting her future collaborator, Colin Callahan!
“He had called me up randomly after we had both graduated from NYU,” Susan recalled. “He was like ‘oh, let’s just work on music together!’ I said okay, sure. We spent a whole summer making songs for fun, and on one of the songs I wrote the lyrics, and I came to him like ‘please help me with this!’ He built a track around it, and I was so in love with the song. I had no idea you could independently release a song through Spotify, so I did that. It was my first single ‘Taste Like Summer,’ and it was like a dream come true. The funny part was, I met Colin in a computer science class my freshman year of college.“
It was an amazing moment in time, and one that Susan deeply cherishes. Just like a polaroid picture, music is timeless, and Susan wants her memories and stories to live on through it. They both capture tons of emotion, and in “Polaroid,” Susan wanted to capture the thrill of the chase to track down a special someone. When writing the song, Susan kept thinking of those moments in movies where a person is trying to chase down someone else at the airport. (And of course, you know how the rest goes. They chase them up the escalator, the person heading to catch their flight can’t seem to hear the person chasing them, and they barely meet at the gate. But then, you ask yourself, how did the person chasing the other person manage to get past security so quickly?!) Susan doesn’t know how they manage to do it every single time, and neither do I.
What Susan does know though, is the fact that stories like these can surely brighten up someone’s mood! Packed with swirling electronic beats and Susan’s charming vocals, “Polaroid” is a vibrant tale that will leave listeners hyped up for a sequel.
Listen to “Polaroid” below!
If you enjoyed my chat with Susan, be sure to say hi to her yourself on Instagram @susandarvishi!
