From Brazil to New Jersey, singer-songwriter and versatile pop artist Luciano Santos has released his most personal song to date, "Glimpses."
After Luciano Santos moved to New Jersey at the mere age of 10, he was introduced to iconic pop acts like Maroon 5, Hilary Duff, Jesse McCartney, Ashlee Simpson, Ryan Cabrera, and All American Rejects, Green Day, and Switchfoot. Fast forward to today, he's become an evolved and versatile pop artist that dabbles in pop-rock, alternative, and electro-pop.
The new, deep single from Luciano Santos is perhaps one of the most vulnerable he's released yet. "Glimpses" is a wildly relatable tune that discusses the "what ifs" in life. What if you stayed in a relationship, school, a certain career, anything that we decided to move on from. "Part of you is ready for the new, but part of you doesn't want to let go," says Santos.
Diving headfirst into "Glimpses," this cathartic tune bursts open with smooth keyboard melodies that take us into Luciano Santos's tender first verse. While singing of the blurred places and faces in his mind, he explains those sensations that come with a yearning to head back in time and change the past for a better future.
However, he acknowledges that these moments are nothing but "a glimpse of what could have been," understanding that some things are better left alone. He flies through the song's second half with bold and cinematic pop-rock instrumentals that send us to the outro with nothing but reflection, passion, and hope that he made the right decision.
Take a trip to the past with Luciano Santos's reflective and honest new single, "Glimpses," now available on all digital streaming platforms.
Welcome to BuzzMusic, Luciano Santos. We genuinely appreciate such a relatable and personal single like your latest, "Glimpses." What inspired you to write a song about life's many "what ifs?"
Hello BuzzMusic, thanks for having me. "Glimpses" is a song that I wrote after completing a semester of music school. It was the first time I was living away from home. Before that, I never had the full college experience. I found a community of friends there, and the experience was all very new to me. In the middle of the semester, I was going through some heavy anxiety, and I decided that I wasn't going to come back the next semester. At the time, it felt like the right thing to do, but I wasn't really thinking about what I was leaving behind the friends, faculty, and so on. So I got home for winter break, and I started songwriting, and that's when it hit me that I wasn't going to come back next semester. So I just kept thinking about what my life would have been like If I had stayed, and that's where the idea came from.
What was your songwriting process like for "Glimpses?" Was it easy to throw yourself into such an emotional process and write your vulnerable words?
The songwriting process was very therapeutic for me. It literally pulled me out of the depression that I was experiencing. First, I was playing with melodies, and then I recorded them on my phone. I found a melody that I thought I could turn into a song, then the lyrics "Don't wanna let you go...'' started flowing out of my lips. Almost the whole song was finished in 20 minutes. It's like the song was inside of me, just waiting to come out.
Why did you decide to give the instrumentals for "Glimpses" this cinematic pop-rock edge? Do you feel these instrumentals help convey the urgency of your message?
I knew from the start how I wanted it to sound, that pop-rock feel of maybe like a Shawn Mendes or Niall Horan song. But I gotta give props to my producer Bhauraw for creating that cinematic feel. I'm a big fan of what he did to incorporate the strings and the other instruments in a way that makes it feel like it belongs to a soundtrack of a movie or a show on TV. And I do think the instrumental is telling a story in itself and enhances the lyrics and overall message of the song.
What sort of experience did you want to give listeners with "Glimpses?" Did you hope to help them make any realizations or come to conclusions about their personal decisions?
I want the listeners of this song to know that they're not alone. We all, at some point in our lives, had to let go of something that we regretted afterward. Sometimes making the right decision is painful and comes at a cost. But I also want to let them know that they shouldn't be stuck in the past either. Every day is a chance to create new and beautiful memories and stories.
What's next for you?
I have one more single that I want to release before the summer ends, which is very different from this one. I also want to put out an EP by the end of this year and go on tour sometime in the future.