“The first two years that we were performing,” Beckerman recalls, “the nerves were pretty unmanageable before every single performance because I had the worst stage fright,” a level of exhaustion still remnant in the corners of these memories as she speaks. “But I feel like I’m finally getting to the point where I’m not getting butterflies just from waking up that whole week before I perform — I’ve grown a lot, thank goodness.” 

Daneshevskaya is the project of Brooklyn-based artist, Anna Beckerman, whose namesake derives from her own middle name, one in which she shares with her great-grandmother. Having since released her debut album, Long Is The Tunnel late last year via New York label Winspear, an album in which presence and perspective become intertwined within her own story, Beckerman’s writing has always been one to cherish self-discovery. As she continues in her career, “the more I write lyrics, the more I get closer to what I’m really trying to say,” she conveys, speaking towards her practice. “I don’t know what it is I’m trying to say, but I think I’m getting closer.”

Today, Daneshevskaya returns with “Scrooge”, the first bit of new music since Long Is The Tunnel and a revitalization of an earlier song she recorded and released under the project name back in 2018. Fractured by the cruelty of romantics, Beckerman and collaborators set a benchmark for retainment, where stillness isn’t an option as melodies coincide and collapse, strings gasp at the vivid imagery at hand and playful keys tiptoe around as if not to disturb the surface. Although the lyrics have not seen any changes – the emotion still fervent and raw – “Scrooge” becomes a moment of admiration for what was left untouched, while still recognizing how far she has come since. 

The ugly hug recently sat down with Beckerman to discuss “Scrooge”, looking past the “cringe” of earlier works, and what she has learned from an openly collaborative career. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Shea Roney: I can’t believe it has already been a year since Long Is The Tunnel was released. Are you still riding the high from the attention that album received?

Anna Beckerman: I get so much anxiety from releasing and promoting music that I feel like it took me a while after it was released to be like, ‘oh, wait, I’m proud of that! I’m excited, and I’m proud.’ It’s so crazy to make music and then see people I don’t know posting stuff about it and telling other people to listen to it – so it took me some time to get over myself and enjoy what I had made.

SR: You have a new single called “Scrooge”, which is actually a newly recorded version of an older song released a handful of years ago. What made you want to return to this song now? 

AB: Yes, it was released back in 2018. We had worked on the song and I think we submitted to maybe a hundred SubmitHubs or whatever, and got like a hundred rejections. We always really liked it though, I remember being really proud of it. We all saw that we had this opportunity to re-record the parts of it that always bothered us and give it another go and see if it would reach more people, especially now that we have more support releasing it. Going into it, we knew we wouldn’t record it that same way now, where it had been done kind of chopped up and with different people, so it was nice to get to make it in the way that felt right, and work with the people who I wanna work with.

SR: Although it is a fairly older song, do you feel like it still resonates with you on that same level?  

AB: I feel like my whole life has been making stuff and then looking back on it a few years later and thinking, ‘I can’t believe I ever thought that was cool’ [laughs]. I can’t imagine having as much access to showing people things as kids have now. I was making the stupidest, most indulgent, disconnected and self absorbed stuff, but showing it to no one because there was nothing to do with it. Oh, God, the YouTube videos I would have to look back on if I had had that kind of access back then. But that being said, it was convenient that it was the first thing I ever made and somehow I don’t look back on it and think that I would never make this now. I probably would make something like that still, or even, maybe I’ll never make something like that again, because it was something I did, and now it’s done. But I still have a lot of respect for it, and the lyrics don’t make me cringe, which is a true test.

SR: I fully believe you need those cringy moments though. Little testaments to keep yourself in check.

AB: Oh, yeah, you gotta remind yourself [laughs]. I also took a bunch of poetry classes in college, and I feel like the whole point of those workshops is to just make cringy stuff. Sometimes I do go back and read what I wrote when I was a freshman in college, and I just think, ‘…oh.’

SR: You have always written with such vivid imagery, but this song feels unique, in that it deals with varying moments of proximity and presence. You build this focus from a very intimate lens that feels very hands on, yet you manage to create this growing distance between yourself and “Scrooge”. Was this a challenging feat when writing, and why did you want to tell the story this way?

AB: I think in general, when I listen to music, I really like lyrics that are kind of familiar, but also feel strange. When writing this song, I was just really sad [laughs], so when I have a loss or something leaves my life, I feel like I have a rush to write things down so that I remember. A lot of the first EP, Bury Your Horses, I was dealing with how weird it is to know someone and then not know them anymore, and how that is such a bizarre feeling, even more so than feeling something sad or melancholy – I just feel like it’s so weird. I don’t know, my brain just couldn’t really wrap around it, so I feel like the lyrics are a way for me to put it all out there and just be okay that it’s weird.

SR: The character himself, Ebenezer Scrooge, is textbook villain, but is also a very dynamic character. What was the inspiration of choosing him as a placeholder for someone you knew personally? 

AB: Part of it was that it fit into the amount of syllables that I needed [laughs]. I wish that there was a more interesting explanation, but I just thought of the first thing that comes to mind when I think of a villain, or someone who’s just clearly a bad guy, even though I was kind of aware while I was in it that this person isn’t actually bad, even though I was so upset and hurt – it almost felt fake. 

SR: EB-EN-EZ-ER.

AB: Yeah, it has more syllables than most other villains. What’s that one? Thanos? That’s not good. And it was interesting, because the chorus of the song I had written before my breakup was about being with someone, and then seeing them from a different lens and then feeling that distance from them. And then we broke up, and I was like, ‘no, this still applies [laughs], it still works. I still feel what I said.’

SR: Did you find yourself grappling with the honesty of persevering those feelings that this relationship brought out while writing this song?

AB: I always struggle with being scared that my lyrics will be too specific and they’ll end up seeming precious or something. But I also don’t want things to be so vague that they don’t resonate with people because they’re not specific enough. I was also really angry when I wrote this song and the song itself obviously isn’t – it’s very ‘La la’ indie folk, so it doesn’t come across super angry. But I always loved the Elliott Smith songs where he’s really angry but it’s kind of a cute song, and it takes a few listens to be like, ‘oh, you’re really pissed right now.’ It’s like a little bit of that, and also just thinking that if this person hears this song, maybe only they’ll know that I’m angry. Everyone else might think it’s a cutesy song, but the person who I wrote it about will know that I’m angry. In that way I was trying to be honest.

SR: Your work up to this point has been a very communal effort, bringing in a lot of friends to help contribute and create this rather spiritual effect in your music. What kinds of things have you learned from your collaborators that you hold dear to your heart as you go on? 

AB: First of all, nothing I’ve ever done in music I could have done without the amazing musicians all around me who can do everything. I’m very aware of how lucky I am to have people I get to make music with, and who genuinely want to be doing it. I think that’s the only thing that has kept me in music for so long now. That being said, the best thing you can get from someone giving you feedback is not always the feedback, but the way that they look at music as what sticks with you. The next time you make music, you’ll have a little voice in your head of one person saying ‘maybe you could try a different voicing’, and then there’s another person saying, ‘do you need that many words?’ All of those voices are me, but they’re also a product of the people that I have worked with through the years. 

Watch the music video for “Scrooge”, directed by Madeline Leshner, here.

“Scrooge” was made with the help of co-collaborators Madeline Leshner, Artur Szerejko and produced by Marcus Paquin (The Weather Station, The National, Julia Jacklin). You can now stream it on all platforms.

Daneshevskaya will be headlining Brooklyn’s Baby’s All Right on Friday, December 13th. Get tickets here.

Written by Shea Roney | Featured Photo by Madeline Leshner