San Francisco’s Faith Zapata has released her latest spellbinding single ‘wallet picture song’, which has already proven to be a captivating TikTok hit. Now, the rapidly rising artist shares this song in full. Like many of Zapata‘s bruised, acoustic-pop singles, this one is a poignantly personal and intimate insight into the songwriter’s real life experiences.
‘wallet picture song’ is especially unique as the two halves of this song reflect a dramatic shift in circumstances, feelings and mindset. When Zapata first began jotting down the idea for a new single, it was destined to be one of those pure, unapologetically starry-eyed love songs. At that time, the songwriter had fallen deeply in love. As she thinks back, “For the past couple years, I was involved with someone pretty seriously, and I wrote the first verse and chorus of this song when the relationship was at what I felt was our peak. […] The view from the top of that mountain was so beautiful, and provided for me a vision of the future that seemed so promising. It was hard to think of any reason why it should come to an end, and I was so confident that this was it — exactly the kind of love I’d been searching for and dreaming of my entire life. The kind of love I deserved.”
However, that relationship came to an end and all notions of such romance fell into disillusionment. It was only through an accidental rediscovery of the initial idea in her Notes app and through the encouragement of her sister to finish the song by writing what was true to her in that moment. The reimagined track has kept the same chord progression, but with a slowed down tempo and melancholic melodies that imparts a foreshadowing of an inevitable end. The first half depicts all those film-like tropes of love, but even then Zapata questions whether it’s too good to be true. In the latter half, her devastation, sense of betrayal and grief is palpable. It’s such an honest depiction of heartbreak, that doesn’t fall into the usual clichés and yet with Faith Zapata‘s refreshing style we’re utterly captivated.
Here, the songwriter explains how she finished the song, “Stumbling upon this notes app entry mid-October, waist-deep into the split, I clearly no longer shared that same outlook on love and relationships. This sucked for a myriad of reasons, but in that moment, it especially sucked because I really wanted to continue writing that song, but I didn’t know if I could. I loved the chord progression and melody, but I just wasn’t in the same headspace anymore, so I wasn’t sure if finishing that song would ever be in the cards for me. I brought this dilemma to my sisters, and one of them suggested that I write the rest of the song from my current viewpoint: after the breakup. So that’s what I did.”
‘wallet picture song’ was written and performed by Faith Zapata, features viola and violin performance by Emma Bieniewicz and a cello performance by the talented Pablo Schinke. It was produced by Regina Pimentel, mixed by Kevin Hackett, and mastered by Noah Farhood.
You can listen to ‘wall picture song’ in our Shades of Pop playlist.
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