“Say That” by Paula Jivén

Paula Jivén grew up in Gothenberg, Sweden, and fell in love with music fast. She took up the violin at age three and the piano not long after, with her trips to the opera house for classical musical performances with her mother and younger sister helping to build her keen sense of musicality. When she was thirteen, she competed on the talent show Sweden’s Got Talent and won the prestigious Golden Buzzer, and parlayed that success into working with top collaborators both at home and in the United States.

Now, aged eighteen, Jivén has established an impressive presence on TikTok with over 200,000 followers, and has signed a deal with Universal Music Sweden. She’s spent her recent time working on her debut EP, drawing from the reams of original songs she has created over several years.

One such track is “Say That”, a chill-pop track that balances emotional realism with pure dreamy vibes. Jivén says of the track:

“‘Say That’ is a song that I wrote at a special time of my life. I had just turned 16, I was in LA on a songwriting trip working with people that I admire and doing meetings in crazy record-label buildings. I was getting to do things I had been dreaming about for so long! But something was still not sitting right with me. I think this was the first time I really experienced the downsides of materialism, and it was overwhelming me in the weirdest way. I felt like although I had so much, I was still missing something, the way all humans do, I guess. We never seem to get enough. And when you think you have it all, it’s still not enough, you can’t really talk about it! And that’s where the title comes in. It was something taking up a lot of my mindspace, but I couldn’t really find a way to talk about it without feeling like I was coming off as ungrateful. Writing about it felt like a healthy way to unpack all of these thoughts in a healthy environment. It helped me realize that it’s a privilege to have these problems, but it’s still ok to feel like shit.”