Singled Out: Petra Jarrar's No One At All

Petra Jarrar just released her new single "no one at all," (along with a short film) and to celebrate we asked her to tell us about the song. Here is the story: What happens when you become exactly who you were supposed to be-and realize you have no idea who that person is?

The inspiration for "no one at all" came from growing up in an Arab and Southeast Asian immigrant family in America. I learned pretty early how to fulfill certain roles I was assigned. I knew how to be a daughter, a good student, and a "prodigal" child. For so long, these achievements gave me a sense of identity and direction. But as I got older, I started questioning how much of what I wanted was actually mine, and how much had been shaped by expectation inheritance and the versions of me other people had built.

I wrote "no one at all" with All Made Up, who also co-wrote my first single "spiral." We kept coming back to the feeling of looking at your own life, and almost not recognizing yourself in it. There is a grief in realizing that becoming yourself can also mean mourning the person you spent years becoming.

That idea became the foundation for both the song and its visual world. In the short film, I come face-to-face with the versions of myself I spent years trying not to see. The person I was expected to become, the person I performed for other people, and the parts of myself I had pushed away in the process. The film became a way of making that internal confrontation physical. Looking at those versions of myself directly enabled me to ask which parts were truly mine, and which I was finally ready to leave behind.

"No one at all" is ultimately about asking what remains when you stop performing. If you take away the roles, achievements, expectations and projections, who are you when no one else is watching?

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here

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