Annabelle Dinda Explores the Frustration of the Female Experience in "The Hand"
I’ll be the first to admit that I spend too much time on TikTok, and yet I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. While most TikToks I see I forget about as soon as I scroll away, every once in a while I come across a hidden gem that stops my finger in its scrolling tracks. More often than not it’s a singer with an instrument sharing a snippet of a song they’re working on. My first saved video on TikTok was Peter McPoland sitting at a piano sharing the verse and chorus of the still unreleased “St. Peter.” I stumbled across a TikTok of Isabel Pless singing a song about Jude Law in The Holiday and favorited it, years before I had the chance to write about her single “Shirley Temples.”
Finding these hidden gems artists is my favorite part of TikTok. When I came across Annabelle Dinda with her guitar singing her unreleased song “The Hand,” I was instantly captivated. Within the first three seconds the little save ribbon on the right hand side of the screen had turned from white to yellow and I found myself returning to her profile over and over, waiting for the official release date to be announced.
While the original TikTok featured just Dinda and her acoustic guitar, the final version is slightly more complex. The driving strumming acoustic guitar is still present, but drums have joined the instrumentation, and layered vocals create a depth to the song turning it into an even stronger anthem. The biting lyrics about the female experience that spoke to hundreds of thousands of people are unchanged. Dinda doesn’t hold back, immediately diving into her frustration as she sings “Every time a guy writes a song he’s a cowboy, a sailor / Playing with the world in his palm like the first pioneer / Everytime he opens his mouth it’s a loud movie trailer.”
The second verse parallels the first in structure, but now Dinda is expressing her frustration with her own experience as she sings “Every time I open my mouth I think ‘What a loud noise’ / Still on the soapbox just hoping I seem underwhelmed.” The second chorus ends with the words “God forbid she shows emotion” before the song continues into the bridge, where Dinda takes a moment to justify her emotions singing “This isn’t rage it’s worth a mention.” Too often women are brushed off for being emotional and Dinda doesn’t want her message to be ignored, she demands it be taken seriously.
I’m not the only one who was captivated by Dinda. “The Hand” inspired a storm of edits of underappreciated women in a multitude of fandoms: Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, Nancy Wheeler from Stranger Things, Jo March from Little Women, even Merida from Brave.
So what’s next for Annabelle Dinda post TikTok virality? I, for one, can’t wait to find out.
