Hope Handwritten
Hope Tala’s debut album has been a long time coming. The British singer-songwriter released her first single, “Blue,” in 2018, showcasing her timeless soul vocal over punchy production, while ensuing track “All My Girls Like to Fight” earned a spot on Barack Obama’s favorite music of 2020 list while she also featured on his 2022 and 2024 summer playlists. Now, after three years in the making, her first album, *Hope Handwritten*, is ready for release. “It’s a coming-of-age record,” she tells Apple Music. “It’s epic in scope and charts a really important period of my life from my early to mid-twenties.” Touching on themes of depression, despair, love, and hopefulness, the resulting 16 tracks are a remarkably mature depiction of selfhood. From the guitar-strumming soul of “Growing Pains” to the strings-laden heartbreak standard “Breaking Isn’t What a Heart Is For” and defiant anthem of self-acceptance “Lights Camera Action,” the album plays out the triumphant sound of Hope Tala’s arrival. “It’s my story but I wanted to write something that felt timeless,” she says. “A record of experiences so many of us go through.” Read on for Hope Tala’s in-depth thoughts on the album, track by track. **“Growing Pains (Prologue)”** “There are only two songs that survived the first draft of the record, ‘Growing Pains’ and ‘Jumping the Gun.’ I wrote this during my first trip to LA, and it’s about spending time away from family for the first time and feeling vulnerable. It sets the theme of the record as a coming-of-age narrative, so it always felt ideal as a starting point.” **“Jumping the Gun”** “As soon as I wrote ‘Jumping the Gun’ on the same trip to LA, I never questioned it and it’s never left each draft of the record that came since. I love the song in a visceral way since it’s about unrequited feelings and impulsiveness—how you can interrogate yourself when you experience a connection to another person. It features the sound of a clicking pen as part of the percussion, which also perfectly ties it to the title of the record.” **“Lights Camera Action”** “I went into writing this track wanting to empower myself. It’s about people doubting you and wanting to show them they’re wrong—it’s a ‘fuck you’ song! I was inspired by how social media often makes you feel like you need external validation, so I sing that I don’t need a picture or caption to have a good time. It’s one of the last songs I ended up writing for the album.” **“Magic or Medicine”** “I’ve always felt drawn to songs that are upbeat but have a sad theme, like ‘Teardrops’ by Womack & Womack. I wanted to make a brutally honest song about how I often experienced my life, where I would feel rubbish every day and not know how to make it better. It’s a track about searching for light at the end of the tunnel and knowing there’s something out there that will help me.” **“Breaking Isn’t What a Heart Is For”** “Most of my lyrics I write completely alone but, during the making of this album, I did a few co-writing sessions where I learned a lot and also felt very uncomfortable in the process! I would have never written this by myself but, when I was in a session with the writer Mozella and producer Greg Kurstin, he played me these chords and Mozella said we should write a standard to them. I was going through a horrible breakup at the time and the song reflects that pain. I’m a sucker for the beautiful strings that are on the track and my parents also loved it when I played it to them and that’s why it’s on the album.” **“I Can’t Even Cry”** “This is the crux of the album and a real turning point for me. I wrote it in December 2021, a year into writing the album, and it’s the first song I ever wrote with someone who I was already friends with. I was in a session with my friend Anoop \[D’Souza\], and I fell in love with these guitar chords he played me and this song about heartbreak just fell out, which felt so honest and vulnerable. Exactly what I was feeling in the moment translated into the song, which rarely happens.” **“Thank Goodness”** “‘Thank Goodness’ covers the same breakup as ‘I Can’t Even Cry’ but I wrote it months later when I was able to see more humor and light in the situation. I used the phrase ‘thank goodness’ when I was telling my co-writer Caroline Ailin the story and she said we should build the song around it. Every time I listen to the song now it feels so good to me—it’s a bit of fun amid the darkness.” **“Survival”** “I really wanted to write a song that dealt in some way with slavery, since I’ve long been processing my family history and ancestry—the traumatic things that ended up bringing us to the UK. I also read Toni Morrison’s *Beloved* for the first time when I was writing this and the song ended up sitting in conversation with that incredible book, thinking about what it means to survive.” **“Phoenix”** “I wrote this song about my best friend who was with me every day when I was going through hard times during the making of the record. I wanted to write about all types of love on the album, not just romantic, and she was integral to my survival. It was initially intended to be given to her as a gift but, when it came together, I realized it had to be on the album.” **“Fall Too Hard”** “This song marks a transition in the record from the end of a relationship to the beginning of a new one. I had such a good time writing it with Mozella and Greg Kurstin, and it’s all about the fear of falling for someone and the risk involved in letting that happen. When I performed it live for the first time in March 2022, everyone mentioned it to me afterwards, so I knew it had to be on the record. It’s my brother’s favorite too!” **“Lose My Mind”** “‘Fall Too Hard’ is about risk and fear, whereas ‘Lose My Mind’ is about the buzz and positive energy of falling for someone. This was one of the first songs I wrote with Anoop, and it was written for my partner as a birthday gift. She gave me her blessing to release it, since I thought it could be so cool for someone else to send it to their crush once it’s out in the world.” **“Bad Love God”** “I wrote this while I was playing a lot of live shows and I really wanted something that people could dance to. I was working with the duo Social House, who also produced ‘Jumping the Gun,’ and as soon as they played this idea to me I knew it would be so fun to perform. All the songs I write are honest but this one has more embellishment and storytelling to it, asking whether I’m drawn to people that are bad for me.” **“A Story to Tell/Where I Begin”** “My cut-off point for the album was 16 songs because I felt any more would be too much for people to digest. Keeping it to that number meant I had to put these two tunes together since I love them both so much. ‘A Story to Tell’ was written with Anoop in 2022 when I was feeling frustrated that nothing good was coming out during a session. I had the title phrase in my mind and decided to write a song about songwriting and how storytelling has been such an important part of my life. The transition into ‘Where I Begin’ also comes from the audio of a home video where I’m a kid rollerskating in the house and my mum is talking to me. It’s lovely to have her on the album.” **“Miracle”** “This is another song written for my partner about how falling in love with someone can make you feel that a higher power exists, since it’s such an otherworldly feeling. It came together very slowly over two full days. I almost abandoned it many times but something told me to keep going with it and I’m glad I did—it’s one of my favorites.” **“Shiver”** “‘Shiver’ has similar sentiments to ‘Miracle’ and, for a long time, I questioned whether they were too similar to both be on the album but I loved them too much to let one go. It’s about the hurtling feeling of falling in love and it’s the best song to perform live since it’s such a classic love song. I’m so happy it made it onto the final record.” **“Heartbeat (the end)”** “These last three tracks feel like a trilogy of love songs. This is the last of them because it’s about hope and the main goal of the album is to feel hope in the darkness. I wrote it with romantic love in mind but the more I listen to it, the more I feel it’s about a higher power, or about all the love I feel around me from my ancestry and family and friends—the glimmers of light that keep me going.”
London singer Hope Tala’s long-awaited debut ‘Hope Handwritten’ elevates her heartfelt lyricism with her intoxicating voice
Tala’s mellow, unsensational debut ruminates on friendship, faith and family over fine, honeyed production but with a tad too much similarity