‘I Don’t Give Up Easily’ by Sarah Riches - review

Sarah Riches is a UK, Staffordshire based singer-songwriter who writes with versatility and empathy.

Sarah has an album of the same name of the title track, comprising of 10 original country songs recorded at Soundstage Studios in Nashville last year with much loved producer Fred Mollin (who has also produced Jimmy Webb, Kris Kristofferson, Lamont Dozier, Billy Ray Cyrus).

The album released in April this year and made No 4 in UK iTunes Country Album Chart. Singles from the album Dancing in the Rain and title track I Don’t Give Up Easily made No 2 and No 5 respectively.

"I think the meaning behind the lyrics are quite transparent - it's written from the heart as a reluctant goodbye, a realisation that nothing is going to change if you stay."

"Heaven knows this would never be easy

Can’t change the road that you chose just to please me

My moral code and the values I live by

Don’t wanna change those, you know that I won’t try

It’s time, to face the world alone

Time to walk away from this life that we’ve known"

I think this verse, reflects how we have to live with our decisions 'Can't change the road that you chose just to please me' and how we should be doing things for ourselves, because it serves us and what we want to achieve, and not for somebody else's narrative. Even upholding your 'moral code'and the values I live by'. It's also from a counter view saying I won't change you, I'm happy with you as you are 'Don't wanna change those, you know that I won't try'. Yet it acknowledges that sometimes, to be ourselves we have to take 'time to walk away from this life that we've known' if only to draw clarity and perspective, because we've become consumed and overwhelmed by the world around us. Tired of being told who and what we should become.

"I (I) don’t give up easily

So if I’m not around

There’s a reason I can’t be

I (I) don’t give up easily

I can’t keep hanging round

When I see you don’t need me"

The chorus documents strength, determination and focus of not giving up easily. This is a valuable life lesson, regardless of circumstance or situation. Yet can also be relatable to that of a parent, in so much as they oversee and guide us until we're competent enough to fend for ourselves and able to learn from our own misjudgements.

"And maybe one day our worlds will re-collide and

We’ll start to wonder at how we divided

What was right in my heart is all wrong now

Something changed don’t know why and don’t know how

I’m tired, of searching what to say

Going round in circles trying to find a way"

Colliding and re-colliding worlds, very much relatable to all of our lives. Sometimes we make friendships only to lose them, yet only to rekindle them later in life; on other occasions they are not revisited. The same perhaps, could be said for understanding of ourselves. We think we know ourselves, only to lose touch with our true self and subsequently revisit our purpose. It gives a nod to misjudged decisions, or at least the conflict of head over heart 'what was right in my heart is all wrong now.' The verse also touches on struggle of finding the words in these troubled times. We all seemingly struggle to full articulate ourselves, our needs, our desires as is captured in the lyric 'going round in circles trying to find a way.'

The song then revisits the chorus followed by a modulated instrumental before returning to, and closing with the chorus once again.

"The structure of this one is unusual for me in that there is no bridge. There was one originally but when I first got to Nashville my producer Fred Mollin sat down in front of the piano and said "I've had an idea" and played the bare bones of the beautiful modulated instrumental that you can hear on the record, and I was totally sold. It's really clever as it changes key and then goes back again. When he heard the demo he felt that this song needed to be big in terms of production and almost cinematic, so that's where it all came from, and that's why the video is quite dramatic as well."

'I Don't Give Up Easily' was released 7th April 2023 and is available to download and stream, along with the album of the same name released 21st April 2023.