The songwriting process for “Sí”

Several years ago, I shared a deep friendship with a great woman.

She had confided in me that at times she became overwhelmed by her anger and projected it onto her partner, to the point of things turning physical. He would hold her back.

She was fully aware of this and was actively trying to break free from that dynamic.

One day, she told me that after leaving a party, in the middle of the night, out in the street, his hand had sent her body crashing against a wall. With an open wound on her head, she went to the emergency room on her own and lied about how she had been injured.

In that moment, the question arose: What do I do if she stays with him?

The option (ridiculously self-centred) of saying:
“If you stay in this relationship, I can’t remain friends with you,”
simply didn’t exist for me.

Such a statement would have imposed a condition (that she leave her partner) and, on top of that, would have been built on the idea that I knew better than she did what was right for her — a form of centrism I refuse to practise.

Friendship, for me, is one of the highest forms of love and therefore unconditional.

At that time, I felt that staying, witnessing, was possible for me while remaining open and trusting.

She decided to stay with him.
I decided not to close the door.

I see friendship as a dynamic in which sharing what we’re going through is a gift of oneself, a gift to oneself, and a gift to the other — a virtuous circle.

In that sense, I’ve always valued the trust that allows us to show ourselves dishevelled and soaked, after or during a storm. It’s part of the journey, and temporary.

Gradually, in this particular relationship, I found I no longer had the space to bring myself into the circle, except by being the one who listens and holds.

I struggled more and more with the feeling that my friend was keeping on her wet, dirty clothes when, right there on the chair beside her, there were clean ones waiting.

The circle stopped turning.
We lost contact in a silence that, in truth, spoke volumes.

Somewhere in that process, the song was born, with the line from the chorus (in the original Spanish):

“I save you, but who saves me?”

The line came just like that.
Personally, I don’t believe we save anyone — not even ourselves.
Cf. my song “À toi,” which begins with “No one, I will save no one.”

But this is where art separates itself from the artist.

This song insisted on placing its own words.

They could have been:
“I listen to you, but who listens to me?”
They could have been:
“I hold space for the two of us, but who else holds it for us?”

The thread is reciprocity — movement within roles — the circle.

I leave you with an excerpt from the bridge, which says:

Take me
Somewhere no one has walked before
Show me
That a single breath is enough
I too
Am thirsty

Llévame
donde nunca nadie ha andado
Muéstrame
que basta con un suspiro
yo también
tengo sed

The visual cover for the song shows the shadow of the peach tree on the wall of Marco’s studio, where we recorded the song. Over the next blog posts, you’ll discover how an idea born one evening over a melody becomes a final version ready for radio.

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