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 Hirwe.
Before this episode starts,
I want to let you know that there's some frank discussion of mental health issues,
including panic attacks, medical fears, and thoughts of self-harm.
There's also some explicit language.
Marie Ulven is a singer, songwriter,
and producer from Norway who makes music under the name Girl in Red.
She just released her debut album in April 2021,
but she's already got a lot of fans and critical acclaim from two EPs and singles that she released online,
including a couple of songs that went gold.
The New York Times included her songs in their Best Songs of the Year for both 2018 and 2019.
Last year, she was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Norwegian Grammys,
and this year, she won their award for International Success of the Year.
Asking, do you listen to Girl in Red has also become a kind of code on TikTok,
a sort of shibboleth to ask if someone's a lesbian.
In this episode, Marie breaks down the song Serotonin,
a song that started as a video she posted to her own TikTok in the early days of lockdown in 2020.
You'll hear the original version she recorded on her own before she started working with producer Matthias Telles,