RAYE’s Click Clack Symphony Is the Anthem We Needed

Click, click, clack. The sound of high heels hitting the pavement towards transformation, perseverance, and strength.

Women’s History Month is a month dedicated to empowering women in all industries. But for women in music, we close out the month with an anthem that earns that word. As I listen, I hear those heels as something bigger: women moving through the world, a march of quiet power.

That march has a soundtrack now.

RAYE’s “Click Clack Symphony,” her latest single with legendary composer Hans Zimmer, is off her sophomore album This Music May Contain Hope, out now. What seems like an unlikely pairing on paper, RAYE’s musical style, raw, confessional pop, with Zimmer’s cinematic orchestrations, emotionally brings the two together.  

The song is a pep talk on survival. An encouragement to someone struggling to get out of the house, to stop just existing and start living. RAYE’s lyrics navigate a cold, lonely season of life, but they carry a beautiful lesson tucked inside the darkness.

It opens with a spoken monologue about finding meaning beyond eating, sleeping, scrolling, and working, and choosing to believe that everything will be alright. RAYE describes it best herself:

“The song is about the sounds that high heels make, says RAYE. It’s about those times in our life when you need your best friends or your siblings to drag you out of the house and say, ‘I know you’re not in the best place right now, but we need to get outside.’ Thank goodness for those people in our lives who help us in our dark times.”

And that’s the beauty of music. It’s up to your interpretation of what a song represents to you. For me, “Click Clack Symphony” rewrites resilience. It rejects the idea that strength has to be loud or triumphant, and instead honors the quiet perseverance most of us know far better than any victory lap.

Click, click, clack.

Listen to RAYE’s newest album, This Music May Contain Hope.