Hockaday is filled with talented, opinionated and insightful Upper Schoolers, and in my last year, I want to learn about as many students as possible. And the best way to do so is, of course, over a scoop of ice cream. This issue, I took the one and only Sanjana Rajagopalan — fresh after publishing her very first single, “Neptune” — for ice cream, and she had quite the scoop to share.
If somehow you didn’t know, Rajagopalan, a junior, is a woman of many talents: she sings, she writes songs, she acts, she’s been in “The Really Loud House” on Nickelodeon and she even loves to cook.
Her passion for many of these talents began in fifth grade when she started playing piano and guitar which led to her writing her own music. In the last seven years, Rajagopalan has written over 500 songs (yes, 500!!!). When she finished writing the original version of “Neptune” in seventh grade, it was 10-minutes long.
“You can’t publish a 10-minute song unless you’re Taylor Swift,” Rajagopalan said.
And thus, she cut it down to a wonderful three minutes and 39 seconds, exploring the metaphor of the planet Neptune and the sun.
“Although it’s in the form of a breakup song, ‘Neptune’ is actually about one of my friends from middle school with whom I had this on and off relationship, but we always ended up being friends afterwards,” Rajagopalan said. “To me, it was sort of like the sun and Neptune metaphor of how they always need each other and revolve around each other.”
For me, writing one song seems impossible, but songwriting comes naturally to Rajagopalan. She hopes to remind her listeners that learning to regulate emotions is a critical part of life, so it’s healthy to lean into your deep emotions.
“Neptune’ was one of the only songs I wrote all in one day, maybe in just under an hour,” Rajagopalan said. “When writing a song, I start with the melody and center the lyrics around a quote or idea. I don’t struggle as much with words, but sometimes I have to go to Dictionary.com.”
You may be wondering what’s next in Rajagopalan’s music career, and I have an exciting answer for you: her debut EP, a shortened album, will be coming out in the upcoming months!
But if you can’t stand waiting that long for more content, Rajagopalan performs at open mic nights at Campbell Crossing Studios, Hockaday coffeehouses and Upper School drama and musical theater productions.
To watch Rajagopalan’s full scoop about songwriting, acting and more, check out The Scoop with Coop on the Fourcast Instagram or YouTube.
