Nearly a year after releasing her album Adentro, Francisca Valenzuela is reconnecting with the raw emotion of the album’s piano ballad, “Déjalo Ir.” The Chilean American musician released the video for the track, in which she repeats the line “let him go” and she convinces herself to move on.
“This song is my favorite on the album because it’s just me singing on the piano. It’s about letting something go and turning the page even if it hurts,” she tells Rolling Stone. “We use the phrase ‘déjalo ir’ so much but it’s incredibly difficult to do. It was a visceral release, really. It came from a profound, sincere place.”
Valenzuela says she recorded the song “with a mic and in my pajamas” last year. She ended up including the original raw version she recorded on her album. The video sees Valenzuela performing the song on piano in front of a deep-blue background, and ends with her repeating the phrase in Spanish, “How do you learn to let go?”
“Water reflects this feeling of movement and transit. It doesn’t respect human rigidity. The video is just one scene and something that connected the music with the lyrics in a perfect way,” she says. “It’s raw and expresses the sadness and desperation, but also the mantra of having to move forward.”
Valenzuela released her album Adentro last August, featuring songs such as “Juan,” “Ardiendo,” and “Nada Para Ti” featuring Ximena Sariñana. “The album has been such a journey because it’s so confessional, yet contradictory,” she says of the LP. “It’s been healing on so many levels. The album has a story to tell from beginning to end but each song is its own world.”
The new video also arrives as Valenzuela revealed the lineup for the first U.S. edition of Ruidosa Fest, a female-led festival Valenzuela founded in Chile, where her family is from. The American edition of the event will be hosted at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on Aug. 10 and feature performances from Buscabulla, iLe, Bruses, and Bebel Gilberto.
