Hi, my name is Raine. I wrote and arranged "The Fall" 4 years ago when I was 20, and I don't know why I've hesitated to perform this song until now.

The lyrics are very real and raw. I'm being bare in the verses of this song to hopefully win over your trust, so by the end of the song you're willing to feel yourself more vulnerably as well. I'm welcoming you to "come inside" and I ask you "can you feel yourself?"

This song is about being willing to be wrong. This song is about unlearning what you've been taught so that you may hear new truths. This song is ultimately about feeling and loving yourself in totality and therefore mirroring that in the world around you. This song is about a renaissance that I plan to help bring about.

I realized that we didn't have much time once I heard about the deadline, so I asked my friends to join me on this only days before filming (which we did March 9th, 2023). I rehearsed once with the vocalists: Olivia, Sarah, and Laila. Everyone else got videos of playing the different parts and breaking the song down in text messages or emails. We got together and did 3 takes. The only 3 times all of us ever played this song together. This video is of the 3rd take.

I believe for many reasons this entry can and should win. One, the lyricism is potent, poetic, accessible, beautiful, honest, wholesome and all written by a 20 year old woman from Wisconsin. I use gospel/church music to address the toxicity of religious supremacy. As a young, articulate, caring and talented woman, I am and can be a voice of reason and healing for many. Lift me up and I'll lift you up. Give me an inch, I'll go a mile. Two, who combines genres of music together like this? I love the combination of gospel, funk, jazz, pop, cinematic orchestral, metal, etc...

I could say more, but I think the honesty of this performance speaks for itself. And I trust and believe that there are people out there who are also awake in a world of sleep walkers. Help me wake them.

Lyrics:
I don’t have a circle of friends
But I’ll make your girlfriend question her sexuality
I’ll never buy a pack, but I’ll hit your cigarette
Admired from afar, up close you hate my high morality

And I’d like to be able to say anything
That makes me sound fluid
But I’m feeling rigid and confused with my duality
And though it’s high, I sigh
At how shitty I can be with my morality
So now I see

How high can you separate yourself
From everybody else? yeah
And how low can you go
Before you feel that you have lost yourself
And how long must we ramble on
Singing the same old songs
That mean nothing at all
No, they mean nothing at all
And how far will the money rule as all
Before the light beats the dark
Or we exchange machines for hearts
Well I feel it
The fall

I wasn’t born this way
But we have raised me to be a loner
Clouds of smoke are my escapisms hope
But I would never call myself a stoner
And often the people we call our family
Are the ones we feel know us the least
And though we know communications
The means to an end
That is our only friend
The tree has learned to feed the silent beast
But I always thought that music could set us free

(Chorus)

Come inside yourself
God is inside yourself
You’re only what you perceive
So set your feelings free
You’re so sure of how this goes
But it’s been so long since you’ve felt home
Maybe Jesus manifests himself in light
Perhaps what you think is righteous is not right
So come inside yourself
A composite of everything else
There's more than what you perceive
Welcome in the release of belief

Come inside
There’s no one else
Can you feel yourself
There’s more in the release of belief

Drums: Guy Azoulay
Bass: Jordyn Krenkel
Vocals (L to R): Laila France, Sarah Rose Lopez, Olivia So
Trombone: Quinn Carson
Keys: Brando Crawford