Looking back at Armi Millare’s love songs
When you go to karaoke, you will probably hear songs written by OPM artist Armi Millare. Her ballads have touched a generation of romantics, telling tales of the love-stricken pining for someone merely inches out of their reach.
Belting out Armi’s songs will always relieve pangs of the heart. They’re melodies for maladies; there’s just something in them that heals.
“Songwriting is nearly all subconscious work: songs we write will always be a byproduct of something that’s been sitting in our heads and what our hearts try to understand, yet cannot,” Armi tells Young STAR. Here, she shares the stories behind some of her most famous love songs.
You could say Oo (from the 2006 album Fragmented) is the OPM anthem about unrequited love. “Di mo lang alam…” the persona says to an unwitting person. “Luhaan, sugatan, ‘di mapakinabangan, sana nagtanong ka lang… kung di mo lang alam,” she wishes the person could hear.
Armi recalled writing the song in Filipino class. “We were discussing tenses of verbs in Filipino and I was so fascinated with it, but then my mind kept playing these chords. I just proceeded with the words while the class went on,” she said. Oo became therapy for Armi the more she sang it, and it was the song that offered a transition between who she is today and the songwriter that she was when she wrote it.
From ‘Oo’ to ‘Tadhana,’ singer-songwriter Armi Millare shares the stories behind her most popular ballads.
Armi made it a bit of a mission to write in Filipino at a time when cover songs were the priority. She said, “We were in the middle of shifting markets from acoustic covers to DJs and I didn’t want songwriting as a craft to fade into oblivion. I had to do it for me to keep existing, wanting to be a young songwriter myself.”
“I thought that we needed to thicken the archive of songs written in Filipino to create a sort of balance, and us being naturally bilingual, we have a duty to report the spirit of the times as is.”
While Oo is about one-sided romance, Tadhana (from 2012’s Capacities) leans into the intimacy between two people fated to meet: “May minsan lang na nagtagpo, damang-dama na ang ugong nito.” The persona urges her person of affection to have the same faith in fate as her, letting fate bid them to be together. “‘Wag mong ikatakot ang bulong ng damdamin mo, naririto ako’t nakikinig sa’yo.”
“Tadhana was something that really struck me like lightning in two places,” Armi mused. When she went up to Mt. Santo Tomas with her friends, she sat by her lonesome to record drafts on her phone, despite the fact that she had only days to write an OST for a TV show. She said she was always writing in her head and even remembers asking herself if the song needed was a love song. She was only waiting for downtime to pour the rest of it out.
When the deadline finally struck, she took a bus down and finished Tadhana with her guitar at home. She later wrote an extended version of the song which she would only play during live shows as a treat for dedicated fans.
relieve pangs of the heart. They’re something in them that heals.
A love triangle is then the focus in Indak (also from Capacities), in which the persona struggles to choose between two lovers: “Tayong dalawa lamang ang nakakaalam, ngunit hindi na matanto kung sino nga ba ang pagbibigyan ko.” She lets her heart be carried away by the tune of the music it's dancing to, futilely hoping no one will get hurt.
Armi confessed she went to town with Indak’s two notes, imagining some sort of circus music that felt like her life at the time. “I suffered from writer’s block, which genuinely scared me with complete imposter syndrome. It took a lot to feel comfortable with calling myself a songwriter, and completing Indak gave me that. It started with the words “tatakbo at gagalaw” and it was like the floodgates had opened.” She added that she often likes to create work where people can come in and be part of the narrative, as it makes her feel less alone.
Armi further shared that her process of writing love songs is almost always a spiritual experience, done mostly alone and operating through empathy. Whether these experiences were felt at the time of writing or not, the work completes itself as if someone or something else is in charge. “Sometimes, I feel like I’m just a medium or a vessel whose job is to distill the idea and put it out for people to hear,” she says.
“Most times my environment is conducive enough to write as my days are usually quiet. When I have to be out and I hear something in my head, I may have to go home or isolate myself for a little bit to finish it,” Armi said. “Sometimes I hear a song in my dreams, wake up, and run to the piano to complete it.”
Sometimes, however, Armi will embrace co-writing, like in the case of the 2017 single Unti-unti. “Co-writing requires faith and respect for the other person’s capacity to fuse their work with yours, and for one to have enough courage to take a crack at it.”
Unti-unti depicts fading love, as the persona observes her partner’s changing actions. “Ang pait at ang sakit na dati’y wala naman, ngayon ay hindi na mailagan. Ang tanong na walang sagot, luha’ng nadudulot sa ating mga mata.” Throughout the song, the persona echoes sentiments that are sonically and thematically the same as this verse, suggesting increasing apathy.
“To slowly lose the interest of someone you care about is commonly felt in long-term relationships and the topic is exceptionally sympathetic, I couldn’t help but become it,” Armi said of the song.
When asked what song she wished people heard more, Armi answered Sana (from 2009’s Bipolar). “It was my ode to the Filipino songwriters I looked up to growing up like Odette Quesada, the late Bodjie Dasig, and even singers such as Ric Segreto, who sang timeless songs with such singular delivery.”
“The lyrics to Sana were written off of what I saw in two of my closest friends at the time who just broke up, and at the same time I saw myself in it.”
Sana is about the agony of holding on when you should already be moving on: “Nalilito na ako, hindi na dapat ganto, nakaraan ay natapos at napagdaanan na.” The song itself is wishful thinking, showing how we often trap ourselves because of love.
Today, Armi continues with her solo career. As a musician, she’s currently focusing on live shows, with a slew of new songs under her wing. The old songs we came to know and love have been reimagined by her to fit her new artistic direction. “I suppose the times have urged me to correct the way I would like to be represented as an artist,” she said of her shifting solo.
As a songwriter, Armi focuses on writing about the human experience, and while that may include love, there are different kinds of love and relationships. ”One that matters best to me now is my relationship with myself and the world around me. I have learned to love myself more these days, and I would like to write more about that,” she said.
Armi Millare’s songs have carved a place for themselves in OPM, the same way they etched a place in our hearts. Of her songs’ legacy, she says, “From string arrangements to budots (remixes) played in public transport and a metal band playing (covers), I appreciate how the work has expanded to places I never thought they could reach. I am immensely grateful for the many new lives these songs have had because of musicians and performers giving their spin to it to make it their own.”
