The first time I saw Argenté was in a live show in Thessaloniki. I left the place really impressed and I had this feeling that sometime, in some way, we would cooperate. It happened now, almost a year later, with an interview about her new single, Don’t Come Back. But before we get to the song, let me introduce you: Argenté grew up in Athens and she’s been releasing music from the age of 15. She started off with violin, continued with piano lessons, and she’s a self-taught guitarist. Her artist name is Argyro in French, with a bit of improvisation. I’m related to French in any way, I just... I was trying to find a nice name for my YouTube channel, I wanted to have an artist name and I remember sending it to a friend of mine and he’d said “I don’t like Argenté at all, find something else”. And at that moment that he said he didn’t like it, I realized how much I did, and I went with it.
Her first album (Χρώματα/Colors) is in Greek, the second one (Commercial) will be in English. A few days before the release of the song and before I learned it was called “Don’t Come Back”, I was listening repeatedly another song with a similar title (Shouldn’t Come Back). I feel that was kind of fateful, that the two of us were meant to talk about this one.
You’re my moving inspiration, you’re my sleeping deprivation, you are everything I mention, you fuck up my medication
It was one of those songs that’s just… it was easy to write. It’s like I want to place all this sadness on a love object. Love and lust inspire me a lot. Mostly as an idea. I’m basically saying what the lyrics say, that someone was my moving inspiration, the reason I couldn’t sleep, but also I don’t want them to come back because I fell apart. I like writing in second person in my songs because I see them as letters; as putting your heart and soul into something for someone.
I am same as yesterday
It’s connected with the previous lyrics, “I’m so depressed today, I am same as yesterday”… in general, depression comes in waves. It’s not like you overcome something, there’s no start, middle and end. You try to embrace it, you can try to get help and you can fight every day. And I think that’s what I was trying to get across, that it'’ the same as yesterday but… maybe that’s also related to the “no, no, no”, as a denial of the reality.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
Why so many no’s… maybe “no” symbolizes the walls that surround myself as a protection over rejection. I don’t let people approach me (emotionally) often, but when it happened, it was like I was trying to hide behind my music and behind my lyrics.
I feel like leaves on trees
Yes… I feel like leaves on a tree. I think I want to depict this feeling like I’m among many others, many other plants and stuff… like I’m not something special, still I feel like you could miss me.
Don’t come back, baby
There’s still love for that person… “baby” indeed shows some kind of tenderness. And I think that was the goal behind it, because there can be love in ending any kind of relationship. A friend of mine told me recently “we don’t need to experience everything until we die, some things can just be memories”, and he was totally right. It’s nice for some things to end. There’s a beauty in endings in general. But maybe it’s a little hard to come to terms with it.
Argenté records and mixes herself her songs. In this one there’s only one guitar, a lead voice and backing vocals. I love mixing songs like that. They’re raw, with backing vocals accompanied by a simple guitar or piano. This kind of music is deeply touching to me… there’s clarity and the lyrics are foregrounded.
This song brings to consciousness every thing that’s already been done, every thing that remained the same and every thing that didn’t go as planned or as you’d want. It’s a reminiscence of moments without a desire to relive them. It’s an admission of love and at the same time an acceptance over the dead end of a situation. It embraces the ending with a comforting tone and a plead for its finality.
