You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
Joy Latikun is a singer and songwriter from Arizona who's now based in Nashville.
She's been releasing music since 2015.
And last year, she was named an Artist to Watch by NPR, Spotify, and Amazon,
and she was number one on Vogue's list of new LGBTQ artists to listen to.
She put out her third album, In Defense of My Own Happiness, in June 2021.
It includes the song Look Up.
For that track, she worked with Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer Dave Bassett.
And while they were working and talking, they recorded a couple of long voice memos.
Joy sent me those voice memos.
And in this episode,
you'll hear the actual moments in late 2019 when the song was first coming together.
And Joy explains how the song was inspired by the different and maybe opposite ways that she and her partner see the world.
There's flowers in your hair.
Hold on, cause somebody loves you.
You know trouble's always gonna be there.
Don't let it bring you to your knees.
Look up.