Maybe AI can write music, but it’s not great with tears. Roi Aknin, a songwriter who invites the algorithm to the party yet keeps the emotional nucleus strictly human, has dropped “We’re In The Same Boat (Don’t Let Us Drown),” and it feels less like a song and more like that moment when the rain decides it’s done just drizzling.
It’s a ballad, sure, but let’s kick the museum description out of this boat before it gets too heavy. Aknin’s voice rises like a gust before an incoming storm. Her vocals float above the kind of pop-intensity that has you thinking, “It’s probably fine,” then suddenly you’re gripping the railing hoping it holds. There’s tension and release here. It’s soaked in grief but not in an indulgent, ‘everything is meaningless’ kind of way. Instead, it’s anchored in the human need to cling to something while the water rises.
The theme is harder to shake off than that song your friend claims nobody else knows about. One year post a national wound—the October 7 attack on Israel—it becomes more than echoes of personal hardship. It’s collective, a human bond, not romantic, but real—when the world cracked and some were left asking how to stay above the surface.
Sure, AI might assist in assembling the puzzle, but there’s blood in these pixels. The words swim through layers of loss and connection, while somehow suggesting that even in this shared, sinking ship, the human spirit remains stubborn—buoyant even, like, how the hell did we make it this far?
And that’s the kicker. You don’t walk away unscathed, but you don’t drown either. Aknin doesn’t let you.
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