EMO ROCKER KID, SAM VARGA BREAKS DOWN HIS BRAND NEW EP “LIGHT ME UP” TRACK BY TRACK EXCLUSIVELY WITH YMC!
1. MAYDAY
“Mayday” is an emo-anthem ridden with pedal steel. I wrote the song in the middle of a bad bout of depression. I had the opening line for a bit but no one in Nash wanted to write it with me. Then one day in the darkest part of that bad time I just heard the chords and the song was written in bout 30 minutes.
2. WHEN SHE FALLS
“When She Falls” is my favorite song to date.
"There's a hammer in my head, there's an anvil in my heart, and there's a song they sing in between the hits that’s lighting up the dark".
I kept on getting whispers from the universe/cosmos/whatever that I needed to go to Bozeman Montana. After a psychedelic experience convinced me, I booked a tour out to Montana and after a week and a couple thousand miles, I found myself in the middle of the canyon during a blizzard. I stayed there by myself all day. When I went back down the mountain I was already writing the song. Then Will Stone helped me finish her up after a midtown bender.
3. SEX AND WHISKEY
“Sex and Whiskey”...it's a song about sex and whiskey;)
Killer road trip tune. Written w/ Kacey Velazquez.
4. LIKE I NEVER LEFT
“Like I Never Left” is about my relationship with my hometown at the time it was written. I realized that the day you leave your hometown...that version of you is who you are to that town...forever. Which can be troubling and grounding. I'd go back home after accomplishing so much here in Nashville and it wouldn't matter, I was only who I was in high school to them. It didn't matter what I had accomplished, how much I had grown, how much I had changed as a person. But there's also the good in that. Where you’re from is where you're from and you should get knocked down a couple of pegs every time you're back.
"It's all I've ever been, might be all ill ever be, but for better or for worse they know the best and worst of me"
(Written w/ William Stone)
5. IF YOU DON’T KNOW
“If You Don't Know” came about from a call with my mom. I had been seeing an amazing woman and had fallen in love but hadn't told her because I didn't want to scare her or myself. My mom, who was in the middle of losing her father/my grandpa and said: "if you don't tell her the tragedy won't be that you didn't say it, but that she never got to hear it". There's a lot in this song; just say what you need to while you can.
I wrote it with Patrick Murphy on our first write.
6. A BETTER WORD
“A Better Word” was conceived in my favorite writing room with Lauren Weintraub and William Stone, who are my two favorite writers in the world. No story to this one that I recall. Lauren brought in the idea and we just really tried to fuck people up in the emotions; which is normally par for the course with that room. The two of them are a master class in writing and there's always high proof bourbon.
