08/27/2022 01:13:25 PM
Ben&Ben has dropped another new song, and this stripped-down track depicts a confessional tale that is emotionally impact even in its apparent weightlessness.
Penned by Paolo Benjamin, the song dubbed The Ones We Once Loved showcases a somewhat intimate yet unique perspective on love, forgiveness, and breakup.
“It's a song that owns up to one's faults, makes proper apologies, but also expresses hurt, as breakups are often two-way things,” the critically-acclaimed band said in an official statement. “It’s also one of the hardest songs we’ve written, because it requires the writer to forgive himself for his past and own up to his faults and mistakes. The painstaking process towards that state, the cycles of anxiety and catharsis that the writer went through, and the eventual expression of all of that in the form of this song, as an encapsulation of such a heavy journey, is what makes this song stand out among our other songs.”
Produced by Johnoy Danao and Jean Paul Verona, this song from the folk-pop outfit takes a deceptively stripped-down approach in terms of musicality, but still managed to retain the earnestness that defined their recent hits – a bare and transparent arrangement despite maintaining a certain depth, weight, and storytelling within instrumentation.
“Supporting the vocals is the staple piano sound, as one would hear when being sung the humblest and sincerest of songs, slowly followed by more and more melodic instruments as the singer opens up and exposes vulnerability,” the band explained the sonic motif behind the release. “At the end of the day, we wanted to make an arrangement that would provide no barrier to taking in each meaning of every word of a song that has so much to say.”
Backed by rich but sparsely layered instrumentation, the song, particularly its chorus, captures “what so many of us are often too afraid or unprepared to say after a difficult breakup.” Hoping that listeners would take responsibility in making amends with one’s self, and the person on the other end of the grieving process, the band shares, “We are hoping that this song somehow helps people bridge that gap and feel the importance of really letting go through a multi-faceted forgiveness: one of the other, and of the self.”
Ben&Ben's new song The Ones We Loved is released in time for their budding tour in North America later in the year. But aside from that, it also marks as the first collaboration between the super group and Geloy Concepcion, a globally recognized photographer whose works made it in notable publications and exhibits, including Vogue Magazine.
“We’ve always wanted to do a collaboration with Geloy Concepcion as most of the band members look up to him, that when we realized he would be the perfect artist to work with for The Ones We Once Loved, we instantly took a chance and set a meeting up with him,” Ben&Ben shares. “In Geloy’s current project ‘Things You Wanted To Say But Never Did’ we saw how resonant and resemblant his messaging was to The Ones We Once Loved and that he may be the best artist to communicate the song’s message. Geloy’s eye and his way of introducing a space to let out feelings and emotions was one we wanted to emulate in this campaign—a space where people sit safely and quietly with their feelings.”
Days prior to the actual release of the single, Ben&Ben encouraged their fans to use the hashtags #BenandBen #BenandBenTOWOL #TOWOL and #TheOnesWeOnceLoved as part of its Twitter activation campaign promoting the international release of “The Ones We Once Loved.” The hashtags revealed official Ben&Ben Twitter emojis, and unlocked a special preview of the song last August 24, 2022.
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