You Mean the World to Me

Album: Freya Ridings (2019)
Charted: 57
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Songfacts®:

  • "You Mean The World To Me" is a ballad that Freya Ridings wrote alone in her living room about a period when her mother was ill. The song was produced by Adele/Sia key collaborator Greg Kurstin.
  • The video was directed by Game of Thrones actress Lena Headey and stars her castmate, Maisie Williams, who played aka Arya Stark on the show. Williams portrays an older version of the daughter who gets into an argument with the father before finding resolution.

    Freya Ridings explained to Apple Music that Headley "got in touch and said she was getting into directing music videos and that she'd like to do my next one. She thought Maisie would be the perfect lead. I have so much respect for them as actors and the female creative empowerment that we have in this world. It was a really emotional three-day, freezing-cold shoot. I'm so happy with it."

    "I think Freya's voice is undeniable in it's sort of storytelling," Headey told Zane Lowe on Apple Music's Beats 1 Radio about her directorial debut. "When I heard the song, I just thought of family, and then I spoke to Freya, and she said she wrote it about family. And then, the story, basically, kind of grew a little bit, and it's pretty universal in that sometimes things don't always work out, and people don't stay together, and kids are very insightful."

Comments: 1

  • Nick Reynolds from NewportThis is a very powerful story of parental alienation. It tells of a daughters guilt even though she was coercively controlled by her mother to cut her ties with her father. This shame manifests over time as the child becomes an adult, and even though not fully realising the psychological manipulation set upon her by the alienating parent the daughter feels immense remorse that she was mean and stopped contact with her father - even though this wasn't her fault in any way.
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