Madison Beer is back at the Genius studio to perform her latest, “Ryder,” which has been streamed over two million times on Spotify to date. The song is dedicated to the New York natives little brother, Ryder and their life together through the years. The song is also off her sophomore album Silence Between Songs.
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MusicTranscript
00:00 I was amidst making the album, so every time I would come home I would have just like six
00:03 or seven songs to play them and they would all get so excited and want to hear them.
00:06 This time I was just like, "Ryder, will you come alone to the car with me?"
00:09 And he was like, "You're fucking weird, but sure."
00:11 I played him the song and I was just nervous.
00:13 So he listened to the whole thing and at the end of it I kind of looked at him for the
00:18 first time and he was just trying to not let me see his face so hard and I just caught
00:22 like a tear roll down his face.
00:24 I decided to write this song a long time ago mentally.
00:33 I have always wanted to write a song for my brother, but I feel like I haven't been able
00:37 to articulate the things that I wanted to until recent years.
00:42 That's been with therapy, even with writing my book.
00:44 I feel like I was able to discuss a lot of things I maybe wasn't ready to in years past.
00:48 So this was a song I've always wanted to write, but wasn't able to until recently.
00:52 I grew up in the same house, so I know why you lash out.
01:01 Oh, I understand you more than you think I do.
01:09 Cracks in the window, castles in pillows, and all of the places I built us to hide.
01:22 I really wanted to establish where we are in the story.
01:28 I really wanted people to listen to this and have this vision in their head.
01:31 I just wanted to also make it clear to the listener that this is about my brother, my
01:35 little brother, sort of childlike, playful, whatever.
01:39 And I think that Cracks in the Window, Castles in Pillows felt so childlike and playful and
01:43 fairy tale-esque.
01:44 And then yeah, I wanted to say, "And all the places I built us to hide," because as much
01:47 as I wanted it to feel like this fairy tale, cute sort of thing, it wasn't necessarily
01:52 always positive.
01:53 When you're 11 or 10 years old, your little sibling is just the most annoying person in
02:12 the world to you, at least he was to me.
02:14 And I just have vivid memories of having my friends over.
02:16 He would try to come in my room and hang out with us, and I would just always be like,
02:19 "Get out of my fucking room.
02:20 Get out of my room."
02:21 Now, as I'm older, I just picture him alone in his room while I'm hanging out with my
02:26 friends and just not caring or thinking about including him.
02:29 And that breaks my fucking heart in ways that I can't even describe.
02:32 But I also, obviously, I was an evil child.
02:35 I just was like, "My little brother's annoying."
02:37 I got signed when I was 12 years old.
02:53 And Ryder was nine.
02:54 He was nine years old and didn't really have much of a choice.
02:57 It was kind of just like, "Oh my gosh, your sister, her dreams came true.
03:01 Let's all support her and go to LA and uproot your life."
03:04 Now looking back, there's so many things that happened that shouldn't have.
03:08 He moved middle school alone like four times.
03:11 He was in high school, then he got pulled out to be homeschooled with me.
03:14 Then he was back in a regular school.
03:15 Then he moved back to New York.
03:16 He was just really trying to figure out where he belongs in this world.
03:20 And I feel like I maybe made that worse for him.
03:25 Just two kids caught in the crossfire.
03:33 Just close your eyes.
03:36 I know you're so tired.
03:40 Just kids, you and I.
03:44 I know it's hard sometimes.
03:48 But you'll be alright.
03:52 And we'll be alright.
03:54 I think that we all are big kids that are just going through life.
03:57 And you can describe life as crossfire.
04:00 And you're always trying to dodge and figure out what's going on.
04:02 I just didn't want to harp on that for too long on the chorus.
04:05 I wanted it to just be like, me being a big sister, just close your eyes.
04:09 I know you're tired.
04:10 I love you and everything's going to be okay.
04:11 It was kind of the main sentiment that I wanted to have there.
04:15 You're going to be fine and we'll be alright.
04:16 I'm going to be alright.
04:17 When I've been going through my own personal mental health journey and I've been coming
04:35 to peace with my own things, I then have been like, "How can I come to peace with how those
04:40 things affected other people?"
04:42 And Ryder was someone who I think was in the closest range to be affected by all of it.
04:46 And so, yeah, it's been difficult.
04:48 But I think that this ... I was going to say bar.
04:52 I don't want to say the word bar.
04:54 But this bar is really like, I don't know, I guess just me acknowledging.
05:00 Me just being like, "I know we don't speak about this, but I know that you had years
05:04 of your life that were stolen because I did, which means that you certainly did.
05:07 And you should have been by my side through all of it and I shouldn't have left you to
05:11 figure it out on your own.
05:12 And I'm sorry for that."
05:13 I wanted it to tie back in.
05:31 I wanted to make it clear that now he is my shoulder to cry.
05:35 He is someone I lean on and vice versa.
05:38 I feel just so lucky to be close to him and I feel so grateful that we've been able to
05:41 work through some of the hard things that I wasn't sure we would come out of.
05:45 And I'm very lucky to be his sister.
06:10 This bridge was just important because I was like, "I want to wrap this up in a way that
06:15 shows that I can make peace with the past and I can be okay with what has happened.
06:18 And we can acknowledge it, I can apologize for it, and then we can put a bow on it and
06:24 send it off."
06:27 With this song being so emotional and about my brother, he still annoys the fuck out of
06:31 me to this day sometimes.
06:32 And we still fight and we're not just like holding hands, skimming down the street.
06:36 I love Ryder.
06:37 I think it's important to note that with songs like this that sound like they're just like,
06:41 "Wow, you must be in such a healed place and you guys are probably just so healthy and
06:44 amazing and..."
06:45 That's not realistic.
06:46 That's not real life.
06:47 So Ryder, I love you.
06:49 You're still fucking annoying.