Bilge Nur Yilmaz (known as Tendertwin) leaves listeners comforted with being exactly who they are in her new single  “Absolute Nobody,” a mysterious song about the pressures of life and the desires to live without stress or expectations. Tendertwin moves between intense, emotional chords and soft fairylike tones as pressure builds up and slowly leaves the song.

“Wiped me off like city leaves

We don’t need you anymore

Your pretension is obsolete”

The idea of being wiped off like city leaves creates a sense that the narrator feels they are in pieces, while still being part of the natural world. The concept of not being needed anymore, or pretension being obsolete creates the feeling that having confidence, or over-confidence turned into pretension, isn’t getting the singer anywhere close to happiness.

There’s a funeral in my mind

I don’t know who I killed

Give me time to be around you

There’s a sadness in this song, low and depressing, as the lyrics try to figure out who Tendertwin really is or wants to be. As she contemplates her childhood, she tries to get some of that youthful feeling back, where there wasn’t pressure to live so seriously.

Was I brighter in my youth,

My early days?

When I was living under your chest

I was the moon

While the narrator was living under someone else as a child, having no true identity of self in terms of success, they felt like the moon, free, bright, and calm, always rising, always glowing. It seems that in aging, the idea of having to become someone is overwhelming to Tendertwin (a relatable feeling to anyone in their 20s). The desire to go back to just being a kid calls to her.

I want to know to be

I want to know how to be

An absolute nobody

An absolute nobody

And absolutely anybody

Anybody

Anybody

The song changes tone and moves into a more positive and relieving sound as Tendertwin ends with the repeating thought of wanting to be an absolute nobody. The music becomes more positive and uplifting in tone as the pressure lifts and dissipates. But the question of wanting to know how to be an absolute nobody gets to the core of what it means to be human today. How do we live in the world with dreams to be artists, musicians, or in any career, and yet stay true to ourselves and accept ourselves without the identity of that career choice? How do we really achieve true happiness?

How could you think I would miss my chance to lose?

This last line leaves the listener understanding that this song has been the chance to live differently for Tendertwin, in a new childlike wonder, without the pressure of trying to be somebody, and enjoying life as nobody. It seems that Tendertwin has her answer, that in becoming a nobody, at least to herself, she can feel less pressure, living life joyfully and peacefully like the moon, observing and enjoying the living world.