For the past few years, Vancouver-based artist Serena Sun has let people into her world through deeply emotional music. Her songs have been featured on several prominent Spotify playlists, showing that her personal experiences and riveting melodies are highly understood and valued. Her recent single “For the Hell of It” has been her most popular release thus far, continuing to pull in thousands of streams and new fans each month. Ready to follow up the track, Serena is giving us the personal “Body,” which is the second single from her upcoming debut album.
Even though it has an airy indie pop sound, “Body” is a little more than a pleasing piece of music. The lyrics are more intense, as Serena opens up about a sexual assault experience she went through while attending college. Boldly, she sings about how she “never saw it coming” and mentions that “a little gold chain is a huge red flag,” putting her guard up whenever she is around “insecure guys.” She even tells this guy, “I hope you lose all your friends / ‘Cause they don’t know what you did,” and attempts to find closure. You can check it out below.
When discussing the track, Serena shared,
“I was sexually assaulted by a friend in university and was really shaken by it. Ever since I started pursuing my career as a songwriter, I’ve wanted to write about it, but haven’t been able to find the words until now. I was on a trip to New York when my dad sent me an article about a protest against sexual assault going on at a university here in Canada. I was in my hotel room at the time and was so upset that sexual assault was still such a prevalent problem on university campuses (and in general) that I wrote this song in 30 minutes. It felt so good to finally express it and have the lyrics also feel empowering to sing.
I felt that it was important to bring another woman on as a producer and songwriter, so I worked with the incredible Tiger Darrow to bring this song to life. I hope that anybody who has gone through a traumatic experience will listen to this song and feel empowered, and enjoy singing (or screaming) the lyrics, “F*ck you for trying to claim my body.”
You can listen to “Body” on platforms like Apple Music, Spotify, and SoundCloud.
Keep up with Serena Sun: Instagram // Facebook // Twitter // TikTok // YouTube // Website
