BENGALURU: Bengaluru’s teen singer Tanya Shanker recently dropped her latest song What Lies Beneath. It is a deeply personal and gritty song about self-reflection and introspection. Shanker wrote the song about two years ago while she was ‘feeling very lost and hopeless’. “It’s about self-discovery and introspection. It’s like probing the surface to find out what drives me, and the reasons I do the things that I do. So it definitely helped me realise a lot about myself. It’s a special song and one of the first where I feel like I was able to capture exactly what I put in the lyrics,” says the 17-year-old singer.
Even though Shanker has come out with many originals in these two years, the song had always been work in progress for her. “We had been working on this EP for about two years and it is finally ready for release,” says Shanker, adding that her mentor Richard Andrew helped her while working on the composition.
Not just the music, the video also looks powerful and dramatic with Shanker seen underwater. The singer emphasises that all the stunts were done by her. “I think I got up at 3 am. We had to be at the lake which was on the outskirts of the city. Because it’s water, you can only get one chance to do the entire shot. I didn’t even know what was in there. So in my fear, I almost slipped a couple of times, but you can’t see that in the video,” says Shanker, with a laugh.
The video might remind you of This is the End, sung by Adele, in Skyfall(2012). Shanker says that’s where her primary inspiration came from. “I wanted to set a very poignant mood. The melody is haunting in a way and that was exactly what I wanted. Richard and I discussed it and we were going for a James Bond theme song with the vibe of Skyfall,” says Shanker.
Though the song has an Adele vibe, the teen singer is a huge fan of Lady Gaga. “I feel her stage presence is just amazing. She’s done things that were so ahead of her time and has an individuality,” she concludes, hoping she reaches those creative heights someday.