Meghna’s Eerie ‘In My DNA’ Will Stay With You Long After It’s Finished
Meghna. Photo supplied.
Melbourne-based artist Meghna has just released her new single, In My DNA and it’s a track that you’ll find rattles around your brain. Meghna’s vocals definitely sit within the pop realm, but the production is more akin to what you’d hear on a gritty dance track. To date, Meghna’s kept fans on their toes both with her vocal and production choices, and this is no different. It’s an engaging listen.
She also captures the feelings of many when she sings about the relationship a person has with their place of birth. I’ve always wondered myself if you feel a connection with the place you grew up because you were born there, or because it starts to weave its tentacles into your being. I know that where I grew up, and by extension the friends I had and where I went to school influenced me. The track definitely gave me the space to pause and reflect on the lyrics (when I wasn’t engrossed in the production). There’s a lot to like here.
Speaking about In My DNA, “In My DNA was written based on the experiences of my parents and grandparents in India, as well as an interesting documentary I watched on the Bangladesh brothel town of Daulatdia. The documentary follows a young girl and her life in the village — she wants an education but it’s difficult to access one. She says that the town is ‘unsafe’ for her because all these men hang around, looking at her with malicious intent.
“Many of the women and children in the town had been sold into prostitution or were born and bred there after generations. They want to escape but feel that the town has trapped them, with every waking minute they spend there the shackles grow tighter. My parents and grandparents had also experienced poverty and conditions like this in India. Essentially, In My DNA is about thinking that ‘you have to be something’ because it is ‘in your DNA’, or in your roots but still hoping for better things, or for things to be different.”
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Check out In My DNA below. The stories Meghna tells through the song, both of her parents and grandparents in India, as well as the story of a young girl in Bangladesh, serve as a filter through which listeners can view their own lives. In My DNA is a spectacular piece of songwriting, as it makes individual circumstances feel universal. Give it a listen - it’s well worth your time.