A voice in exile: Tania Saleh’s search for belonging in new album Fragile

Tania Saleh is known for resisting constraints, whether it’s creative or emotional.

Looked upon as doyen of Lebanon’s indie music scene, the acclaimed singer and visual artist’s three-decade career has produced politically charged and socially conscious songs that reflect both the vibrancy and fissures of her homeland.

But when leaving Beirut in 2022, she realised the weight that comes with the decision to leave home. The suitcases indeed have limits – physical, emotional and psychological.

"I couldn't take my house with me. I couldn't take my books, my paintings, my drawings, the photos of my family, my sofa, my bed, my pillows," she says. "I took maybe the collection of Joni Mitchell CDs, a book or two, some photos of my boys, simple dresses, simple shoes, and I put them all in one suitcase and I just closed the door behind me and left."

Saleh speaks to The National from her apartment in Paris, where she now lives and works. The relocation was due to a series of what she calls "unfortunate events" – the 2019 uprising, Lebanon's economic collapse, the Beirut port explosion and the lack of reliable electricity and internet.

When her two sons left to study abroad (one in Manchester, the other in Paris) she realised she could no longer stay behind alone.

"If I stayed in Lebanon by myself, I would rot slowly, but surely," she says. "Emotionally, at least. I couldn't have lived away from my boys. So I put all my energy into joining them in Europe. I didn't even know I'd end up in Paris. I applied for this special talent visa, they accepted it and I arrived."

Fragile, her new album, is a response to the change and a record of its aftermath. While Saleh has long been known for blending lyricism with social critique, Fragile marks a turn inward. Its songs unfold like private journal entries, stripped of overt commentary, marked instead by meditations, allegory and introspection.

"I love Paris, and it's a very good place for an artist to be, but I always feel like something is missing since I left Lebanon,” she says.

“The warmth of the people, the weather, the details of daily life in Lebanon - I miss them all. And the moment I don't have anything to do, the emotions creep in and eat me from the inside. That's why I run to creativity. To avoid the news. To avoid reality. To keep going."

And in those moments where that refuge doesn't work? "Oh, then I will cry my heart out," she says. "Which is not a very common thing to happen to me."

There is no grand gesture in Fragile, no sweeping statement about the state of Lebanon or the Arab world. Instead, the album's most powerful commentary lies in its restraint. Saleh worked closely with Norwegian pianist and composer Oyvind Kristiansen to craft a soundscape that feels stark and weightless.

The brooding track Inta Mashi (You Are Nothing) crystallised during those daily metro commutes in Paris, where Saleh would quietly observe the disconnection between strangers. Over a minimal synths and subdued beats, her resigned voice unfolds like both a sullen observation and an internal monologue: “You are nothing: hunching, thriving, dreaming. / You are nothing: sleeping, awake, standing and seated.”

The song ends with Saleh shaking off that inertia and reclaiming herself amid the masses: “One life within, another one abroad. They're in your heart and you in theirs/You know if you ask them, they'll say. You are everything.”

Saleh says the lyrical structure often reflects the pep talks she would give herself when the encroaching sense of isolation creeps in. “When I thought of my loved ones, of the people who care about me and whom I care for, I thought maybe that's where I become important,” she notes. That's the only place where I matter."

The album's title emerged from another minor, but evocative observation.

"My suitcases sometimes will have this sticker that reads fragile and it made me realise it was more than just my belongings,” she says. "It was also about my voice. I'm used to being critical, to speaking out. But now, I find myself silenced. Not because anyone told me to be quiet, but because I don't feel like I have the right to criticise this country that welcomed me. So I shut up. And that silence, that was hard."

That sense of quiet seeps into every song. Marajeeh (Swings) is less about the changing fortunes of relationships but the sense of being suspended above its daily pressures. In Matrah (territory) a conversation with birds, fish and trees becomes an allegory for belonging. "They have a place in the world where many of us humans don’t," she says. "And yet, somehow, that conversation with them gave me comfort. Like maybe there's still something to learn from creatures that don't question their presence."

What surprised Saleh most, however, was how much painting, a form of creative therapy, became part of the album-making process.

"I took that as a concept for the album, both visual and lyrical and musical," she says. "I started drawing paintings and working on a series of people living in their suitcases. Because it's not only me, I look around me and see almost everybody living in a small apartment, maybe one room, cramming themselves in. So I tried to translate that into paintings, in a visual storytelling kind of way."

Those paintings will be turned into postcards and exhibited at her coming concert in Beirut on July 30, her first show there since leaving.

What will it mean for her to return, even briefly? "I'm not sure how it will feel," she says. "But I know I want to show what I've made. And maybe offer a bit of beauty back into the hell we're all navigating."

The deeper question, though, isn't just how to keep creating in exile – but what it costs to create from that place. "I don't see any artist I know and admire not doing the same," she says. "Sadness is inspiring unfortunately. But the fuel for everything I do is love and my love tank is always full."

She has sought therapy in the past, but found greater comfort in more personal forms of emotional processing – writing, drawing, composing – all stemming from the act of making something that feels honest.

"It is easy to get into the heady rush of technology and using AI tools. I wanted to return to the essence of creating, the kind of expression that comes from the hand, not the machine," she says. "Maybe that's why this album feels different. Because it's not trying to explain anything. It's just me with my suitcase. Trying to keep going – emotionally, artistically, mentally."

Saeed Saeed is a 2024-25 Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow

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