María Zardoya, lead singer of The Marías, stopped by the Genius office to break down their song “No One Noticed.” The track, produced by bandmate Josh Conway and Gianluca Buccellati, is featured on the group’s sophomore album, 'Submarine.' On today’s episode of Verified, María deep dives into the lyrics, shares insights about drowning out the noise, trusting her gut, creating music the band loves, alternate endings and more!
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MusicTranscript
00:00Noah Notice taught me a lot about myself and the way that I like to make music, and it's
00:04also taught me a lot about the industry.
00:07At the end of the day, I just want to make music that I would want to listen to.
00:11Music that speaks to this gut, instinctual feeling that I have and that I love to feel
00:18when I listen to music.
00:20So it's kind of taught me that follow that feeling.
00:23Everything else, all the chatter in the industry, everything else of this is the hit or this
00:27is what's going to work.
00:28Just forget about that.
00:29Put your blinders on and just go with your feeling.
00:39I remember just waking up one morning and sitting on my bed, grabbing the guitar and
00:45just starting to play.
00:46The windows were open.
00:47The birds were chirping.
00:48It was just a beautiful morning.
00:50I just started playing guitar and then the melody and the lyrics just kind of came out
00:56all at once.
00:57The label kept asking us for tempo, tempo, tempo.
01:00We want people to dance.
01:02We want a Maria's up-tempo song, and this was not that.
01:06So it just kind of went on the back burner for a while.
01:08I want to say a year later, I remembered this song.
01:13I sent it to the label and they were still like, this song is interesting, but we need
01:17the tempo.
01:18I was upset.
01:19I was kind of pissed.
01:20I was like, you know what?
01:21I'm just going to do whatever.
01:22And I leaked it.
01:23And then the fans found it, uploaded it on YouTube.
01:27Uploaded it as a podcast on Spotify and they just really gravitated towards it, which made
01:31me really happy because the song is called No One Noticed and it kind of went through
01:36this iteration of nobody noticing the song for what it was and me being so upset about
01:41it.
01:42But then the fans noticed how special I thought it was.
01:44So it became our song and then finally it made its way onto our album, Submarine.
01:49And then it really got noticed.
01:57Maybe I Lost My Mind, No One Noticed is just kind of playing on, you know, you could be
02:11in a room full of people or in a room with somebody that has no idea what's going on
02:17inside of you.
02:19And you know, you could be just going through like the darkest period of your life and nobody
02:24would know and nobody would even try to notice or like try to ask you about it.
02:29So I think at the time I was just feeling kind of like a little bit invisible.
02:33Even though like I understand it's nobody's responsibility to read your mind.
02:36Like I feel like it's your responsibility to communicate like how you're feeling.
02:40But at the same time, it's kind of nice like when people pick up on like little things.
02:45Your nails, like it looks like you've been biting your nails, like are you nervous about
02:48something?
02:49I feel like you can tell a lot by my state of mind based on how my nails are that day.
02:53Little things like that when you can pick up on that are like, hey, like you seem like
02:56you're cold.
02:57Like do you need a blanket?
02:58Like little things like that make me feel like seen and noticed.
03:14It's getting old.
03:16It represents like that it has been going on for quite some time.
03:20And then I'm just kind of tired of this feeling.
03:22I wish that you could understand like what I'm going through.
03:25Even if I explain it, even if I like scream, you know, what's going on, it's not getting
03:30through.
03:31So it's kind of like that breakdown of I guess communication of not being able to understand
03:35each other.
03:36At the beginning of the song, it's like no one is noticing.
03:54Like I feel alone.
03:56Here's where the song is saying, oh wow, like I feel seen now.
04:02Like this warm feeling of somebody understands me.
04:05But knowing that, wait a minute, like this might not be right.
04:10So that's where the back and forth starts.
04:36All of a sudden, it's like you're not feeling seen by people who are actually in the room
04:41in front of you, but you're being seen by somebody through this virtual world, almost
04:46like the movie Her.
04:48You're surrounded by people, but he falls in love with an AI character because he feels
04:54so understood by them.
04:55At the end of the day, we just want connection.
04:58Like we just want to connect with a human being, whether they're in the room, which
05:02is the most ideal scenario.
05:04You can look at somebody's eyes and touch them and really feed off of each other's body
05:09language.
05:10But if that's not there, the next best thing is falling in love virtually, connecting by
05:15just words and connecting by a video, FaceTime, something that's not present, but can be just
05:23as tangible and just as real.
05:32Believe me, I guess I'll get on a plane, flight to your city, excited to see your face, hold
05:43me, console me, and then I'll leave without a trace, come on, don't leave me, it can't
05:51be that easy, babe, if you believe me, I guess I'll get on a plane, flight to your city,
06:01excited to see your face, hold me, console me, and then I'll leave without a trace.
06:10This is the part of the song where that virtual connection tries to make itself tangible.
06:16It's this desperation of like, don't leave me, I will see you in person, I want to see
06:22you in person, I will get on a flight in the middle of the night, show up at your doorstep
06:25in the morning, do a grand gesture to show you just how much this means to me.
06:31I'm a person of grand gestures.
06:33I love romance and I love to be romanced and I love romancing.
06:37I'm like Noah in the notebook, like I'm not like Ali, I'm like Noah, like I will build
06:41you a house.
06:42I don't know how to like build a shelf from Ikea, but I will learn how to build you a
06:45house if I love you enough.
06:49And so it's that gesture of like, I'm just gonna fly to you and show you how much you
06:54mean to me.
07:24So, estás tan dentro de mí, you live inside of me, like you live in every single cell,
07:36you're like vibrating through my body, like you are living inside me because of how intense
07:42this connection is.
07:44Te sigo pensando, I keep thinking about you, te sigo esperando, I keep waiting for you,
07:49I keep waiting for you to change, I keep waiting for me to change, I keep waiting for something
07:53that might not ever happen.
07:57But you're still far away from me, me canso llorando, I'm tired of crying about this,
08:02I'm over it.
08:03Like at this point, I'm just over it.
08:23If we ever were to change, we both know that I've been waiting, waiting.
08:36So this is the alternate alternate ending.
08:38So it's this feeling of, you know, I haven't seen you in a while, I don't know what you've
08:43been up to, I have no idea what's been going on in your life.
08:46I'd like to think that if I ever saw you, we'd be cool and like be chill and like be
08:50friends.
08:51But another part of me feels like if I saw you, I would just completely break down.
08:55And if you ever were to change, we both know that I've been waiting, I've been waiting,
08:59I've been waiting for changes to happen and for us to move on to a new iteration of a
09:06relationship or friendship.
09:07But at the end of the day, I'm kind of tired of waiting too.
09:09So that's going to turn into another extended, stay tuned.
09:21The song covered sense of loneliness, sense of connection, sense of desperation, sense
09:47of, okay, this isn't going to work.
09:49I'm going to leave without a trace.
09:51So I think this alternate ending was, but wait, maybe I didn't want to leave without
09:57a trace.
09:58Like maybe I wanted to stay, but I was, I was afraid.
10:01I was afraid of what my life would be if I went down this path.
10:06I think I was just living in a complete state of fear.
10:09I wanted to communicate that.
10:11I wanted to communicate like, hey, like maybe I wanted to stay.
10:14I don't know if that would have been the right thing or if this would have been the right
10:17path.
10:18And I was afraid to see if it was, but we'll never know.
10:22The music that I like to listen to is just music that like I can put on headphones and
10:26go on a walk.
10:27Like that's how, that's my favorite way to listen to music is to just put headphones
10:30on, go on a walk, be in nature, look at the trees, look at the leaves, like swaying, look
10:34at the birds.
10:35And that's how like I enjoy my music.
10:37So No One Noticed to me felt like that song that I could just put my headphones on.
10:41I mean, I love to dance too, but like I like to be more sad than I do dancing.
10:47That's how I experience music.
10:48I like the sad songs.
10:50There's this playlist on Spotify that I have.
10:52I love Radiohead and there's like Radiohead in order of happiest to saddest.
10:56And I just start it from the end.
10:58So I go from saddest to happiest.