It's Okay To Cry

"It's Okay To Cry" is a song performed by SOPHIE. It serves as the first track from Sophie's debut album, OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES It's the first single from the album released on October 19, 2017.

Background
Following a string of collaborations after her singles compilation,  PRODUCT, was released in 2015, Sophie surprise-released the tender “It’s Okay To Cry” with a self-directed video in October of 2017. The video marks the first time she has shown her face in any promotional image or material.

This track is sang by Sophie herself, and it contains background vocals delivered by Cecile Believe.

Music and composition
SOPHIE in an interview for Interview Magazine:"I’ve never really thought of it in that way, anyway. The intention has always been to be how I want to be and how I’m comfortable in the world, never to be anonymous. Right now, I’m just going with my instincts, and this is what I feel like doing. I don’t see any difference. It’s just expression. I’m always honest in what I put across."When asked by the interviewer if the track would be like a continuation of the previous music or an escape, SOPHIE said:"'It’s very much the same. I’m still embodying and communicating the way I’m feeling and living at a given moment. In that sense, it is a continuation, because it’s equally an accurate reflection of the person I am, my interests, and what I want to put across to the world — the questions and ideas I want to express.'"

Critical reception
i-D Vice opined:"'Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides opens with It’s Okay to Cry. While in many ways the anthemic power-ballard feels more fitting of a closing number, when released back in October, the song and its accompanying video beckoned a new era in Sophie’s career -- her vocals and face at front and centre -- thus setting the tone for a record that offers a different perspective on the, until recently, anonymous Scottish DJ and producer.'"Rolling Stone opined:"'“It’s Okay to Cry,” the crystalline ballad that opens the album, took us to an unprecedented level of sincerity: “Just know whatever hurts, it’s all mine/It’s okay to cry”.'"

Music video
Sophie said about the music video:

"I’m really happy that we managed to realize the video exactly how I imagined it. It’s about this idea of the richness and complexity of our inner and outer worlds — the emotional world and the external world, like the planets, the weather, and the universe. Just being overawed by how surreal, mysterious, and confusing the depth of both inner and outer worlds are. The video encapsulates the quiet, internal world flatly on top of or inside these universal, shifting landscapes, and contemplates how they are related. It’s somewhere in there, that feeling, that I wanted to communicate."

Visual credits

 * Director: SOPHIE
 * Co-Director: Nicholas Harwood
 * FX Specialist: David Therrien
 * Choreographer: Todd McQuade
 * VTR: Rob Nowik
 * Playback: Ethan Molomut
 * Editor: Niles Howard
 * Colorist: Arianna Shining Star
 * Beauty: Flawless FX
 * Visual Effects: Coyote Post
 * Additional VFX: Stephen Pagano
 * PAs: James Joyner, Carley Solether, Alice Wang, Alexander Powell, Davis Villa

Trivia

 * This is the first SOPHIE song to have an official music video.
 * This is the first song that SOPHIE released independently, with her own music label; MSMSMSM.
 * With this song, SOPHIE expressed herself publicly as transgender.
 * The lyric "And I saw the magazine you were reading. And I read the page" references to the song Ooh, where it says "I get so lonely, life in magazines". And also to Whole New World / Pretend World with the lyric "There's a world inside you".
 * This is SOPHIE's first song featuring her own vocal performance.