Celebrating female solidarity, the song's lyrics and production make it powerfully human.
Photo: El Hardwick | Words: Lloyd Bolton
Rubie built a reputation for powerful songwriting and a beguilingly individual sound on debut album 'Take Both' and subsequent EP 'Whatever Cage.' With her new single 'To Change,' she returns with a powerful manifesto for trans sisterhood. In a climate where political discourse about trans women is built on fear and division, she instead turns the focus on to positive, real experiences and solidarity.
The production sets up this message perfectly, human urgency immediately registered with the Morse Code that kicks the song off. An exposed, under-produced vocal gives raw voice to its lyrical content, so that we feel the life-giving importance of the people she speaks of: "I've got sisters now and they hold me." This repeated line is contrasted with another that takes a different context of the meaning of "hold," switching it from protective to accusatory: "If I told you I wanted to change, would you hold me to that?"
Responding to such adverse real world discourse, Rubie keeps the main focus of this song on the positive side to the story, which is the power of solidarity. Her unadorned lead vocals are eventually complimented by a chorus echoing this defensive question, "Would you hold me to that?" Elsewhere on the track, Rubie celebrates the spectrum of possibility for human identity and experience with lines like, "I've got sisters of every gender and shape." Her delivery is dramatised by the conviction of the performance but not invalidated by pathos. As a whole, this piece is affirming without being didactic, which makes it all the more inspiring.
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