Singer Freya Ridings Photo: Jamie Cowan / Good Soldier
The last few weeks have been difficult for just about everyone. After entering the holiday season with great hopes of seeing friends and family in person, the Coronavirus pandemic continued with the Omicron variant leading to record breaking case numbers. Personally, I struggled for a couple of weeks to stay on top of everything with a return to more social distancing.
Thankfully I had vacation time for some recovery, but this column needed to take a backseat for a few weeks. All that being said, this week’s “The Best Song You’ve Never Heard” needs to be uplifting to help push forward.
Freya Ridings, the daughter of Richard Ridings, the British actor and voice of Daddy Pig in Peppa Pig, was raised in London and attended the BRIT School, known for its performance arts training. Her first two releases were “Blackout” and “Maps” in 2017 before releasing her breakout song “Lost Without You,” which mostly found success in the UK.
She signed to Capitol Records in the US and her 2019 eponymous album reached no. 3 on the UK charts and went gold in the United Kingdom.
She has yet to find much success here in the US.
Ridings released “Castles” in late 2019 and right away you hear the confidence of her vocals. The lyrics describe the sadness after a breakup in the opening verses before exploding with confidence in the chorus, exclaiming “That I’m gonna build castles/From the rubble of your love” and “I’m gonna be more than/You ever thought I was”.
Clearly, she went through pain but is coming out of this relationship stronger and ready to take on the world. Her unique vocal range really catches your attention and gives this song a different vibe than other singers could.
This song is perfect for a time when you need to rebuild confidence and recover from a stressful moment in life.
If you enjoyed this track, take this and past “The Best Song You’ve Never Heard” picks with you via our handy-dandy Spotify playlist here.
Jeff is a KXT weekend host and the Manager of Radio Operations for KERA 90.1 and KXT 91.7.
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