Cynthia Erivo stopped by the Genius office to break down her latest single, “Replay.” Known for bringing other people’s songs and stories to life, Cynthia is now giving fans a glimpse of her true self. On today’s episode of Verified, the singer-actress gets vulnerable about her journey with confidence, how it’s an ongoing battle within herself, her creative process, and more, all while mesmerizing us with her magical voice.
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MusicTranscript
00:00What I love about the song is that it is not, I think, what anyone would expect from me.
00:04I think people are so used to hearing me sing big ballads and love songs and use the whole
00:09range of my voice.
00:10But I think there's something to that sort of repetitive, rhythmic, sort of simple melody
00:19in that it feels a little bit like a lullaby.
00:22It's more about the lyric than it is the tune.
00:25And actually all of the tune is going on in the background.
00:28And I kind of love that.
00:30I think people see me as a really confident person all the time, but nobody really knows
00:40the journey that it's taken to get there and actually the ongoing journey that happens
00:45all the time.
00:46This is like my life in real time.
00:49I go to therapy and my therapist is saying, hey, you're not very good at accepting help.
00:55So we have to figure that out.
00:56I just wanted to be really honest about my humanity.
01:01I feel like if I can share that, then other people won't feel so afraid of sharing what
01:06they feel too.
01:07You know what I mean?
01:08And it's about constant growth.
01:10As a human being, I want to keep growing.
01:12I want to keep trying to be better.
01:14You write about love and you write about all those things, but this sort of like came to
01:19me.
01:20It was really clear that this is what I wanted to write about.
01:22Trying to be a human that is trying to grow.
01:24So when I hear the lyric or feel the lyric, immediately the best thing for me to do is
01:28just write it down.
01:29I still write in script.
01:30I still scribble.
01:31I still...
01:32I mean, it's all lyrics.
01:33It's all...
01:34You know, that for me is the best way to get my ideas down.
01:38I think there's something about holding a pen and seeing the words leave my fingers
01:45and into the ink and onto the page that you can see the thought process.
01:54It's the idea that you don't feel like you deserve to be loved by a person or anyone
02:08in general, to be honest.
02:09And so in feeling that, you also...
02:13When someone does love you or when people do love you, you also are fighting the idea
02:18that they might leave.
02:24So I'm looking through the lens of an impending abandonment.
02:29I literally have that in my life.
02:32My dad abandoned me and I...
02:34In it, you can't help but those big moments affect the way you see the world.
02:41And so for a long time, it always felt like a person is going to leave.
02:45That's what this first verse is about.
02:47The beginning of how the rest of the thought process comes about.
02:51It starts with abandonment.
02:53It starts with feeling like people are going to leave you.
02:55It starts with feeling like you're not good enough to be loved.
02:57It starts with that.
03:08Writing music is completely a form of therapy for me.
03:10I feel like using writing, using music, and even singing, to be honest, when they aren't
03:16necessarily my songs, gives me a place to put some of the feelings and thoughts that
03:20I haven't necessarily been able to process out loud.
03:24It's like an exorcism.
03:25You get rid of the thoughts and you allow yourself to be honest about what you're actually
03:31feeling and thinking.
03:51I've wanted to liken the way we hear music to the way our minds work.
04:09It does play on a record.
04:13The thoughts that you have, if you don't tend to them, will keep going around and around
04:17and around.
04:18When you look at a record, when you listen to music, if you don't take them off the record
04:23plate, they'll just keep going around and around.
04:25But what I'm saying is that sometimes we find it hard to turn the record off.
04:29It just plays.
04:49I always want to be the person that can take care of everybody.
04:53I always want to be the person that's in charge and in control and can do everything.
04:57I was talking about, there are so many of us that if that is taken away, if you are
05:01no longer the person that has to take care of everything, then are you surplus to requirements?
05:06Are you still good enough without taking care of everybody and being the person that helps
05:11all the time and being the person that's standing, turns up just in time and is good enough to
05:16help?
05:18My cape is taken, what use am I then?
05:21I'm afraid of being lonely, I can hardly comprehend.
05:26I also am an avid fan of superheroes and comics.
05:32I loved the idea that those two things could go together.
05:35Superman's cape, you take that off, is he Superman or is he just Clark Kent?
05:39And does it matter if he's just Clark Kent?
05:42Isn't Clark Kent good enough without being a superhero and being Superman?
05:45And that's what I felt.
05:48I feel like being a person who wants to help is partially like wanting to be a hero, wanting
05:53to always help, wanting to always be the person that saves the day.
05:57But if you take away the superpower of being able to help everyone all the time, are you
06:00still special?
06:01The answer has to be yes, because you have to want people to love you for more than the
06:06things you can do.
06:07You have to want people to love you for who you are, not what you can do.
06:17If you've achieved, then you've achieved.
06:34Now the overachieving is for what?
06:39Is it for you?
06:40Do you want to validate yourself?
06:41Or is it for everyone else to say, look at how much this person's done, how much you've
06:44done?
06:45Overachieving is one thing, but overachieving is something else.
06:48It's like pushing to the very nth degree, and a lot of us do that, but it means that
06:54if we don't achieve, that becomes such a hard thing to deal with.
06:59It becomes such a big fall from achieving, and that isn't healthy at all.
07:04Really and truly, failures should be just things that give us the room to learn and
07:10try again.
07:15I wish that I could say, all this mess might go away, changes to, I wish that I could say,
07:37all these feelings go away, because mess suggests that all of those things are bad.
07:44Feelings changes it to personal stuff that you have.
07:48Feelings aren't bad.
07:49Feelings are just human.
07:50It becomes a less removed thing, and more personal when you change it from mess to feelings.
07:58Now they're not just inanimate objects that are separate from yourself, they become personal
08:04things that you experience, yeah.
08:06Intentional.
08:07Very.
08:09Whether we like it or not, helping, and being the person who saves the day, and being a
08:14person who you can be relied on, is something you can do, as opposed to someone who you
08:19are.
08:20If you're a kind person who happens to be funny, and is just, you know, sweet, that's
08:24who you are, as opposed to the person who's so good at helping everybody with everyone's
08:29problems, or whatever that might be, that's something you can do.
08:33If you were just a person who just is good to be around, that should be enough.