✨Tehran Lights: A Song Born From Heartbreak and Solidarity

Before anything else, I want to be honest.  I am devastated. I am heartbroken. And like so many others watching from afar, I often feel painfully helpless.

When the weight becomes too much, when scrolling the news feels unbearable, and silence feels wrong, the only way I know how to calm myself is to write. To put the feelings somewhere they can breathe. To give them a shape. To bring them to life through music.

Tehran Lights was born that way.  

There are songs you write because you want to say something. And there are songs you write because staying silent is no longer an option.

Tehran Lights belongs to the second kind.

I wrote this song from far away, but it was never meant to sound distant. It was written from exile, yes - but also from memory, responsibility, and love. Tehran is not just a place where I was born. It is a city that raised me, shaped me, and continues to live inside me, no matter how many borders sit between us.

A City, Not a Metaphor

In Tehran Lights, Tehran is not a symbol. It is not a backdrop. It is a living presence.

A city that watches.

A city that bleeds.

A city that refuses to disappear.

When I say “Tehran, az tariki natars” - Tehran, don’t be afraid of the darkness - I am not speaking poetically. I am speaking directly. To a city that has been forced to live under pressure, violence, censorship, and fear for decades, yet still finds ways to breathe.

From “I” to “We”

The heart of this song lives in one small but crucial shift.

The chorus begins with:

Man ba to-am - I am with you

And it ends with:

Ma ba to-im - We are with you

That change matters.

Because exile often starts with I. With loneliness. With separation. With watching from afar.

But solidarity only exists when I turns into we.

This song is not about speaking for Iran. It is about standing with it.

Three Languages, One Story

Tehran Lights moves between Farsi, English, and German - not for aesthetic reasons, but because that is how my life sounds.

Farsi carries intimacy, memory, and tenderness.

English opens the door to the outside world.

German grounds the reality of living elsewhere, of building a life while carrying another one inside you.

None of these languages cancel each other out. They coexist - just like identity in the diaspora.

Light as Resistance

The imagery of light runs through the entire song.

Lanterns.

Childhood streets.

Faded flag colors.

Small flames held carefully in dark spaces.

This is not the language of grand revolutions. It is the language of survival.

Light does not always roar. Sometimes it simply refuses to go out.

The Artwork

The cover artwork for Tehran Lights shows the Azadi Tower standing in the dark - wounded, crying - surrounded by five children holding lanterns. The light does not come from the tower itself, but from the next generation.

Behind it, the shape of Tehran appears in the colors of the Iranian flag.

This is not nostalgia.

It is continuity.

Why This Song Exists

Tehran Lights is not a protest chant.

It is not a slogan.

It is not an answer.

It is a hand held in the dark.

For those who stayed.

For those who left.

For those who are tired.

For those who are still standing.

Tehran, az tariki natars.

Ma ba to-im.