Song Exploder - Silvana Estrada - Como Un Pájaro

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Silvana Estrada is a singer, songwriter, and producer from Veracruz, Mexico. She won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist in 2022, and she’s been nominated for three others, including for her song “Como Un Pájaro,” which is the song that we talked about for this episode. It’s from her second album, which came out in 2025, but she started writing the song several years before that. So we talked about all the different versions of this song, and a couple of versions of Silvana herself, that emerged throughout the process.For more info, visit songexploder.net/silvana-estrada.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. Silvana Estrada is a singer, songwriter, and producer from Veracruz, Mexico. She won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist in 2022, and she's been nominated for three others, including for her song, Gomo Unpaharo, which is the song that we talked about for this episode. It's from her second album, which came out in 2025, but she started writing the song several years before that. So we talked about all the different versions of the song and a couple versions of Sylvana herself that emerged throughout the process. I'm Silvana Estrada Beverido. Thank you so much for sending me all the voice memos and demos that you made for this song.

I have a lot, no? I would love to start with the first one, which says it's from October 21st, 2019. I remember that day perfectly. In the morning, I was rehearsing for a Dia de los Mertos. show and at the middle of the rehearsal I was so sad I started to cry in a song because I was dealing with a really, really long, difficult relationship and I was just very, very sad and like heartbroken. And then this friend after the rehearsal told me like, I'm going to leave you my piano so you can play the piano and do whatever you need to feel better. And I remember I remember that night just like playing the piano and like vibing and I remember the quietness of the city. So, could you translate the lyrics that you're singing?

Now all the lights are off and the city is asleep. People is hogging. If it's not for love, it's for miscidio, pity. While everybody is sleeping, I'm just trying to feel better. And then it says, well, everybody is sleeping. I'm just trying to not love you anymore. As you were writing it, how are you feeling about what you'd come up with? Yeah, I really like this idea.

I really like this sense of saudadji, you know? saudagin, like this impossible kind of nostalgia of the present. At the end of this voice memo, there's a little thing that happens that feels like a real document of what your headspace was in that moment. It was one of those relationships. You never know if you're in or out. I don't know to say. Have you ever try that? It's really bad for your health. But I guess I was starting to understand like, whoa, I'm going to be very miserable in this relationship, but I don't want to live.

One thing that was interesting to me is that you said anyway in English. Yeah. I feel like as a Mexican, we don't have that attitude. Like, we never don't care. We always care. So, yeah, that attitude, it's more accurate to say it in English. There's also a lyric in this first version that only exists in this version. There's a line where you say,

Degeme seguir to cantando. I'm saying, please let me sing even if it's about to sunrise. But I changed it because when I started to do the chorus, I was going to talk about singing. So I need to hold the idea of singing because I was going to say, I'm singing you as a bird in the middle of the fog. And I really want this image of a singing bird to be like, boom, the strongest moment that it's going to kind of glue all the verses.

And now the song's more dramatic. It's like, please leave me alone, even if I'm crying. Because what else can I do if I love you and you don't love me? So basically I was like drama, drama, drama, drama, drama, and then singing bird. And where did that idea of the singing bird even come from? You know, a few months before the pandemic, I was like, oh my God, I have my first apartment. I'm going to do so many parties. And like, I'm going to have the time of my life.

And then two months after it was like COVID and the lockdown. And I was kind of starting to finally. ending this super toxic relationship and the pandemic was like this really difficult mirror that confronted me. It was like, you know, what am I doing with my life moment? My insomnia went so bad that I was like waking up at 6 p.m. spending the whole night trying to learn how to play guitar and falling asleep at like 8 a.m. in the morning. So my highest peak, it was like at five in the morning. And I was in this eighth floor. All my windows were looking directly to the trees. Even some branches of the trees were like entering my apartment. So I started to feel like a bird.

because, you know, they don't sing for anybody. So that was definitely like stuck in my mind. Like, oh my God, I'm part of this group of birds who are completely lonely. And we're just singing our sorrows, not for anybody but for ourselves. This feels so different from the first version. The music feels so much less melancholy. I was trying to sound happy, which sounds a little bit pointless since the words are so sad. I guess I was just trying to find some light in the courts.

So this was in 2020, but the song didn't come out until several years later. So what happened in the meantime? Then a bunch of things happened. You know, that year I toured like, I don't know how many countries. I won my first Grammy and really bad things happened also. My best friend, he and his brother, they were murdered that same year. And I was so sad. Like the amount of sadness I'm caring is not even possible.

But at some point I was also feeling a bunch of pressure to do something else. like let's do another album because like, okay, I know you're sad, but like you need to do something, right? You need to do another album. You have the songs. So I guess part of my healing process was, you know, producing this album and producing like a bacharo and just trying to find the right sound because I was so lost and afraid that it took me a while to come back to me. So the next demo that I have is from September 2020. What was happening then?

I was in Spain. I was with my band doing this residency. I have a really cool band, so I was like, I'm going to use your skills to try some ideas out. I think that was the moment where I said, like, Should I work with the producer? No. This is something I need to do myself

because it's so personal and it's me that it's lost. So it's me that needs to find the way back. My conversation with Silvana Estrada continues after this. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length. And this is the first one that will be out under my own name, Rishikesh, Her Way. I started making Song Exploder. when I was feeling lost in my own music career.

And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists,

including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Weinrobe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light And the first couple songs are out now

You can listen to the music And get tickets for the shows on my website, Rishikesh.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. You know, all my composer friends are always like, Silvana, you need to do breaches. You only do verses and chorus.

You never do breaches. But, you know, I come from jazz and folkloric music and there are no breaches. So sometimes breaches to me sounds like this moment where you're actually not saying anything specifically. You're just doing the breach. And I was like, no, I don't want to do that. I'm just going to whistle. It's not singing, but sounds different. since it was a demo, I wasn't thinking much about doing like a professional whistling or whatever.

And then at the studio, I tried so many ways of doing it. I even called a friend of mine, which is like a professional at it. And he whistled the melody and it was so perfect. And we were like, nope, we still prefer this whistling. So when you went to make the final version of the song, the version that's on the album. Where did you end up doing that? In Casa Studio, El Deserto,

which is Daniel Vitran's studio, the engineer of the album and a really, really dear friend of mine, I went to the studio and I remember I took the guitar and I was like, Danny, I don't know if this is going to be the day because I'm feeling tired. And he was like, okay, but let's try it first.

I already set the mics, just take the guitar and sing the song and let's see what happens. So, They're Yeah, The Now,

Dweb the city So enterlas Are the Pyrna's For carino and for

Piedad While I Prendo bellittas in Frasquitos of crystal

That me cure the penumbra All All All We were like, oh, it's not try it again. Let's keep it like that.

And it was really a magical moment for us. It was like, great, let's keep going. Roberto Verastegi, my piano player, I was showing him the song. And he started to play those chords, no? Like very simple just to learn the harmony. And I was like, just do that for the beginning, no? And he was like, for real, like, it's boring, you know? And I was like, no, no, no, no, keep it, keep it.

It's really nice to establish, like, this is their harmony. After that, you can open. We put together the drums and the piano at the same time. The drum is like a transcription of the sound of like a Brazilian surdo. It gave the song like something really played. like musically playful. There's a really deep rhythmical conversation between the drums and the piano. What made you decide that you wanted to have upright bass on this song instead of electric bass?

This is funny because actually the first mix my dad told me like, oh, it's crazy that you're using a synth instead of an upright bass. Because my dad, he's a double bass player, like an upright bass player. And I was like, that, that's an upright bass player. bass and he was like, oh, it doesn't sound like it. And we actually had to do something, like mixing. It was too clean. Anyways, I really, I just, I love it grooving in a really folk way. Let me if I'm going to be year-a-mone, even though I'm an amaneseer, that for more

It's interesting to me, as you're interesting to me as you're building this arrangement, you still only have one lead vocal. There's like no harmonies, there are no backing vocals, no double, anything like that. I always keep my vocals as simple as I can. I don't know why. I guess that's my singer-songwriter vein. I never want anything kind of competiento with the words, you know, the kind of the universe of the song. It's always

in order to support the message. And for a song like this, I think it's so important to protect and take care of that truth and that transparency because it's not something you can fake. and everything that's and everything that we have been, I regret it.

You know what? This song comes from a really angry place. Like the words are really harsh. That's where I started the song for sure. But then when I came back to this song, I was like, I want this to be more about solitude and contemplation than just a heartbroken song. To me, it was very cinematic, just the idea of loneliness

and like the problem with being alone is then you need to see all your demons. You need to face all of them. And this reminded me so much to like the Jayao Miyazaki movies. Like my neighbor Totoro, like, um, El Vieja Jehiro. I don't know, spirited that way, I think it's in English. That I was like, oh, I need that kind of orchestral sweetness on this. Because I need sweetness to face all my ghosts and my demons and my pain. And life in general, it's pretty much sadness and pain.

But I think the thing that keeps us alive, it's sweetness. And this song, it's full of like this vulnerable moments. So for me, it was like, no, this needs an orchestra. So we're talking now, and it's 2026, the song came out in 2025. You know, from that first moment in 2019, what is your relationship to the song now, both in terms of the evolution that it had

and just, I guess, what it's about? Yeah. It's crazy because the other night this song made me cry actually but now it's a different feeling you know something really interesting happens with songs it's like some songs are there for you and you're not ready

for them I feel it but I don't know it yet where this is going to lead but I need to kind of be patient I see myself in this eighth floor in the middle of the pandemic just hanging with birds and nobody else and singing for nobody. And I see this song as a testimony of this young girl just trying to figure out her life and figure out what to do with solitude and sadness and pain and finding beauty on that.

And now here's Como Unpaharo by Silvana Estrada in its entirety. They're all right now, now, Dweb the city, So, entrelas are the pyrnaz for carigno

and for pietad while I print a bellit in frasquitos of crystal that me cure the penumbra all all

all all all bad While all the world Dweller, I'm at you I'm trying to As it How could

It's possible the signals that I No, I'm Let me I'm I'm

even even ameer That for more that I tell you What I

do you, is it It's songexplor. To learn more, you'll find links to buy or stream the song. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Mary Dolan, and Kathleen Smith, with production assistants from Tiger Biscope.

The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, I write a newsletter, and I talk sometimes about the making of these episodes. I also write about music and film and the creative process.

You can find a link to the newsletter on the Song Exploder website, and you can also get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening. Utopia.