A Soul With No King

🎶...and a happy new year 🎶

Happy New Year 2025!

After the lovely release of “A Soul With No King | Vevo Live”, I’ve had this song spinning on repeat on my mind. I watch reaction videos and smile at their response to her indigenous cry. I have no idea what the lyrics mean, but the song speaks to something primal within me. Makes me care about the planet - makes me consider how I can contribute to make it a little better.

I know I have skipped a whole bunch of song stories to get to this one, but I figured I could dive into it now that my attention is all-consumed by it anyway 💚.

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A Soul With No King - Song story

“A Soul With No King” is the 9th track on her album “What Happened To The Heart”, released on the 7th of June, 2024. Before her album release, the 18th of April, she dropped an online single version featuring NATURE.¹ The Vevo version added above was released a few days later, on the 11th of June.

Featuring NATURE

This came as an initiative by “Sounds Right music initiative” – a project of the Museum for the United Nations. The idea is that artists who use nature sounds in their music may add Nature as a featured artist as a way to donate money to environmental causes: ²

In April 2024, Nature became recognized as an official artist on major streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music, allowing Nature to be officially credited for its sounds used in recorded music. For the first time, NATURE can generate royalties from its own sounds. Artists who use natural sounds in their recordings can choose to list “Nature” as a featured artist – and a share of their profits will be distributed to environmental causes. As of April 30, 2024, Nature as an artist already has 2.6 million monthly listeners.

The online News site Daily Mail UK wrote about this cooperation in April 2024. The article states that NATURE gets at least 50 percent of the income derived from songs they feature, and that Aurora and Ellie Goulding were among the first to hop on board. “It felt very right to do something together,” Aurora states, and adds: “The world is calling for us. And it has been for a really long time.”³

Meaning behind the song

I don’t usually dive into the lyrics within these song stories. The way she puts words together are so versatile in the interpretation, and people seem to get something personal out of it themselves. Still, there is one lyric line that speaks to me, and I need to put it into words:

"When the world starts to burn, give your water to him”

I don’t know how you interpret this, but considering the attention Aurora has given to the slaughter in Gaza, I firmly believe this line is about that. She doesn’t speak about who is wrong and who is right, but shows us that the killing must stop:

palestinakomiteeninorge

A post shared by @palestinakomiteeninorge

I have scrolled through the comments to A Soul With No King, and it’s clear people have picked up on this:

According to Genius.com, she spoke a bit about this theme before performing the song during her concert in Kingston at Pryszm⁴

“I feel like our souls are lost, and I feel like our souls don’t know what to do. We haven’t given them any value, and we haven’t given them any [hold/home]. And I feel like we really need to prove to our soul that we’re its ruler – and we’d hear it and we will guide it by being just decent, [empathetic], good human beings. And I think about what’s happening in Palestine a lot when I sing this song because I don’t understand how in the modern time – in modern times like this – that we can disagree on whether something so heart-breaking is wrong or not. I don’t understand.”

To me, A Soul With No King” isn’t just a song. It’s an emotional journey that leaves me wanting to do MORE. It makes me feel like I’m called to action. I don’t have much to contribute with, but I can at least stream the song on Spotify. By that, I make sure NATURE gets a few cents from my listening. Here - You can do the same:

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Credits

• Composer: Aurora, Fredrik Svabo

• Producer: Aurora, Fredrik Svabo

• Vocals: Aurora

• Piano: Aurora

• Percussions: Aurora

• Strings: Håkon Aase (fiddle)

• Mixing/Mastering: Mitch McCarthy, Alex Wharton

• Feature: NATURE

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Community Spotlight

B

They go by the name “B”, and runs two Instagram accounts: sugarandheaven and sugarbeets. Through their accounts you will also find a link to their Sugar and Beets Art Gallery.

I’d like to place the spotlight on this account, because of their impressive amount of artwork and mixed media pieces of Aurora. I hope you head over and take a look. I guess they will appreciate some nice feedback too 💚.

sugarandheaven

A post shared by @sugarandheaven

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Fabrice’s Corner

I don’t think there has been much vacation on Fabrice’s part. He has kept his community page busy all Christmas, and he has made this beautiful virtual album concert video (below). Here’s some words from the caption:

I guess it's time to resume my "virtual concert" series : as a reminder, the idea is to "re-create" the corresponding album (as in : in the album tracks order) but with live versions.

As usual I'm trying to focus on fan cams, if possible those with the less views so that you can possibly see something "new", with the goal of finding the best audio/video quality compromise (emphasis on audio quality, though), also trying to spread the choices between different channels and concerts, when possible (not that easy, actually).

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Final Words

Short and sweet? Or a tad too long? I don’t know, but at least I’m done. I must admit; it’s a bit hard to get back on the horse after a long vacation.

I guess there will be more to say about A Soul With No King in the future. This is, after all, one of Aurora’s youngest children. It’s exciting to be around in a time where I can watch it grow 💚.

Have a year 😊
Rune

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Sources

1. FanDom Aurora Aksnes Wiki, “A soul with no king”. Retrieved 2025, January 6th, from https://aurora-aksnes.fandom.com/wiki/A_Soul_with_No_King

2. Eco Jurisprudence Monitor. 2024. “Sounds Right policy to recognize Nature as an official artist in music”. Retrieved 2025, January 6th, from https://ecojurisprudence.org/initiatives/sounds-right-music-initiative-to-recognize-nature-as-an-official-artist/

3. Best, S. 2024, April 18. "Top of the Crops! 'Nature' becomes an official music artist - and already has collaborations with Ellie Goulding and Aurora under its belt". DailyMail UK. Retrieved 2025, January 6th, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13323139/Ellie-Goulding-collaborates-sounds-Nature-official-artist.html

4. Genius.com, “Aurora - A soul with no king”, retrieved 2025, January 6th, from https://genius.com/Aurora-a-soul-with-no-king-lyrics