Taking Space - Jake Gallaway (Lyric Video)

Описание: "Being seen makes it real. Making it real means it happened. And if it happened, how do I live with that?"

Some of us learned early that survival means making ourselves small. That helping everyone else is safer than asking for help ourselves. That visibility equals vulnerability. "Taking Space" is about the exhaustion of being everyone's rock while your own foundation crumbles—and the shame that comes with needing what you've never let yourself have.

This is what happens when "Don't be a burden" becomes "Don't exist."
This is Jake Gallaway. Not taking space.

What did you learn to hide to survive? When did "helping everyone else" become easier than asking for help yourself?

LYRICS:
[Intro]
[spoken flatly, detached] I don't like to talk about it.
[pause]
[bitter edge creeping in] How cliche.
[Verse 1]
[conversational, dismissive] I suppose that makes me just like everybody else.
Maybe that's why I don't talk about it?
[voice tightening] Because then it doesn't matter what happened,
[almost spitting it] I am just another victim in a sea of victims.
[sarcastic] I guess that makes me "normal"
[flattening out] Because I am then just like everyone else.
[Pre-Chorus]
For a moment I feel normal.
[Chorus]
[hollow, automated] So I'm the one that helps, the one that listens. The shoulder you cry on.
[bitter acceptance] That's my place in life.
Always there for everyone.
But nobody is there for me.
[matter-of-fact but rage underneath] My problems don't matter.
[voice dropping] I don't matter.
My problems don't matter.
[Verse 2]
[back to matter-of-fact, strained] So yeah, I won't talk about it.
We all have problems.
[slight break] We all survive.
[shame creeping in] If I talk about it, then I'm taking space.
Taking center stage.
[vulnerability] And people will see me.
[desperate control] I do not want to be seen.
[fear underneath] Being seen makes it real.
Making it real means it happened.
[anguish breaking surface] And if it happened, how do I live with that?
[bitter laugh bleeding in] And as life wasn't difficult enough,
[self-loathing on "wrong"] I had to come to terms with being attracted to the "wrong" people
[exhausted] I had to realise that the way I understand the world is not like everyone else.
[Pre-Chorus]
[building intensity] Did I ask for help?
[desperation] Did anyone see me?
[rage surfacing] Did anyone see that who I was was dying?
[accelerating, barely contained] Piece by piece, day by day. Scars on top of scars.
[sharp as a knife] No.
Every lesson I ever learned taught me one unbreakable rule.
[both whisper and indictment] Don't take space.
I'm not taking space.
[Chorus]
[hollow but cracking] So I'm the one that helps, the one that listens. The shoulder you cry on.
[bitter] That's my place in life.
Always there for everyone.
But nobody is there for me.
[barely holding together] My problems don't matter.
(My problems don't matter.)
I don't matter.
(I don't matter)
[Bridge]
[voice shaking with controlled rage] Because talking about it.
Saying it out loud,
[venom] would be taking space.
[Bridge]
[rhetorical, anger at edges] What would I even say?
[clinical, checking boxes] My father was an alcoholic?
My mother was abused?
[hardening] My sister was almost killed?
[like a statistic, jaw clenched] I moved 34 times before I was 18?
[forced calm] That pain is somewhere else.
[hollow] I don't feel it anymore
[distant, dissociative] That was a different life, a different me.
[Pre-Chorus]
I had to be the rock, the pillar,
the constant that made sense.
There was no me, just what they needed me to be.
[Chorus]
[exhausted, breaking down] So I'm the one that helps, the one that listens. The shoulder you cry on.
[resignation] That's my place in life.
Always there for everyone.
But nobody is there for me.
[raw] My problems don't matter.
(My problems don't matter.)
[barely audible] I don't matter.
I don't matter.
(I don't matter)
[Outro]
[vulnerability exposed] Being seen makes it real.
Making it real means it happened.
[genuine anguish] And if it happened, how do I live with that?
[quiet defeat] So I hide it.
I do not let it take space.
[empty, automated] This is how I live with it
[whispered, fire still burning] (Never taking space)
(My problems don't matter.)
(I don't matter)

CREDITS:
Written & Performed by: Jake Gallaway
Produced by: DJCLAWED
Genre: UK Grime / Orchestral / Narrative
Location: East London, UK

#JakeGallaway #TakingSpace #DJCLAWED #UKGrime #OrchestralGrime #UKGarage #SpokenWordMusic #NarrativeMusic #808Bass #OrchestralHipHop #GrimeAndStrings #UKRap #BritishGrime #LondonGrime #AlternativeGrime #IndieGrime #ConsciousGrime #EmotionalMusic #RawVocals #VulnerableMusic #HonestLyrics #RealTalkMusic #MusicThatMatters #StorytellingMusic #DeepLyrics #MeaningfulMusic #MusicForHealing #TraumaHealing #ChildhoodTrauma #InvisibleBurdens #EmotionalLabor #BeingThereForEveryone #NewMusic2024 #NewArtist #IndieMusic #UndergroundMusic #UKMusic #BritishMusic #LondonMusic #EastLondonArtist #EmergingArtist