Janine Berdin is all rage and messy feelings in ‘Alas Dos Na!!!’
Sitting across from singer-songwriter Janine Berdin in a loud bar, I kept remembering a letter written by fellow teenage singer-songwriter Lorde on her 20th birthday. One line I have memorized goes, “Even when I was little, I knew that teenagers sparkled. I knew they knew something children didn’t know, and adults ended up forgetting.”
Janine, 22, wrote her latest single Alas Dos Na!!! when she was 15. “I had to break up with someone in high school,” she recounts. “The song is from a naive perspective. It’s very raw but honest—it’s very teenage rage. A lot of screaming!”
‘I wrote this when I was 15 and I thought I was gonna die because I broke up with him. A few months later I’m like, what the f**k, why did I write this?’
She posted it online at the time and people never stopped asking for an official release. I ask how she feels about releasing a song that contains very strong feelings she hasn’t felt in years. “Nakakahiya, medyo cringe. Bakit ko ba ‘to nasulat about that dude? Pero for the sake of art!” She adds that there are not a lot of songs that talk about regretting breaking up with someone and it’s a “different feeling when it’s your fault.” “My goal is to release songs and emotions that people go through but never really talk about.”
This is Janine’s first single under Island Records, and the first she made with no external producers; just her teenage feelings and her band. “It was arranged by Juan Karlos”—her fellow Island Records artist—“so some chords are very JK. I was screaming in the studio and everyone was like, ‘Oh my God.’”
Her advice to listeners who can relate to the song? “It’s okay to feel the hurt. It’s healthy. Scream if you want to, but don’t build your life around it.”
“I wrote this when I was 15 and I thought I was gonna die because I broke up with him. A few months later I’m like, ‘What the f**k? Why did I write this?’ Time really heals. Just broaden your world and love yourself.”
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Alas Dos Na!!! is out now on digital streaming platforms via UMG Philippines.