Diva Smith Premieres Video & New Song “Put Back Together A Friend” (Exclusive)

If you aren’t keeping tabs on Diva Smith, you’re missing out.

Aside from being a fashion darling — with a longstanding relationship with Chanel, no less — the LA-native-turned-Lower Manhattan mainstay is also delivering some of the best new pop music around. Today, Mar. 28th, Smith, releases her latest single, “Put Back Together A Friend,” premiering exclusively here on NYLON. The track is a nostalgic, haunting song that sees the 25 year-old seemingly calling out to an old friend. “It is a warning song written to a new partner,” she explains. “It explores the anxieties around letting in someone new, and worrying that this person won’t accept or understand the deepest darkest parts of you. It asks the question, ‘Once you see all of me, will you still be here to pick me up at my lowest?’”

Here, Smith goes deeper into the track, along with her current musical obsessions and what comes next.

What was the process of writing this song? When did you start writing and what initially inspired you to turn this into a song?

I wrote this song with longtime collaborator/friend Stella Smyth. At the time, Covid had just hit, we had never worked together before, and we were both back home from NYU for lockdown. Stella played me that piano melody over zoom, and we immediately started humming melodies and lyrics. We finished the song by the end of the call.

How much of the song is autobiographical? Is there a specific lyric that you're especially proud of or connected to?

The whole song is autobiographical. It’s about someone I was seeing, and how afraid I was to let them in. Many of the lines are hypotheticals, sort of asking, "if this happened, would you still be there?" But they are all inspired by the true feelings I was having. I remember when Stella and I came up with the line “the flavor in my mouth is metallic turning red,” we had an instant reaction to it. It came from such a nonsensical place and then it just fit, it embodied that visual of raw vulnerability that we were searching for. The whole song is very visual to me, and writing each part as a sort of scene in a movie made the creative process flow so easily.

You describe your music as “therapy pop” — what does that mean to you?

My music reflects what I’m going through, I always write from an honest place. The idea of “therapy pop” is that my music is my therapy, and hopefully it can be a part of yours. I spend so much time reflecting on myself, my emotions, my relationships… and putting it all into music. It’s the way I make sense of things. Therapy Pop feels like the genre for young adults just trying to figure things out.

What is next for you in the music space? Are you working on a full album?

I have a lot of music lined up for the future… we are just getting started. At this point, I’m just creating as much as I can. The thought of an album is equally as daunting as it is exciting, so I’m just making the music and letting it find it’s home. But it does feel like an album!

What musicians are you listening to or excited about these days?

I’ve been into country for a while, which is heavily influencing my writing at the moment. A lot of older stuff like George Strait and The Chicks, but loving newer artists like Megan Moroney too. Her most recent album has been on repeat.