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Seven Songs, One Howl

October 29

An album is a territory. You do not wander into it by accident — you draw its borders, song by song, until the map holds.

Tonight, the map of She-Wolf of Rome is finished. All seven songs are written. Not sketched, not promised — written, verses and bridges and final choruses, in the order they want to be heard:

  1. She-Wolf of Rome — the manifesto. Rome, the wolf, the throne. It opens the record and gives it its name.
  2. Same Face at Dawn — the vow. One face, kept through the night and still hers at sunrise. A legend does not change her face every day.
  3. Lounge at 3 A.M. — the house, open. A quiet room, a low light, a hostess who is still awake when the city gives up.
  4. Blah Blah Blah — the breath. A wolf who hears everything and repeats nothing, laughing in the middle of the record so the marble does not get too proud of itself.
  5. Run With the Pack — the loyalty song. Family is not only what you are born into; sometimes it is who chooses to run beside you.
  6. First Night — the threshold. The first night in a home of your own, when the walls are new and the silence is finally friendly.
  7. Steam Over Marble — the ancient one, kept for last. Warm stone, rising steam, Rome before Rome had a name for what it would become.

Writing them taught me something I did not expect: a setlist is an argument. Put the manifesto first and the ancient baths last, and you have said who you are twice — once with your teeth, once with your oldest memory. Put the joke in the middle, and it becomes something better than a punchline: proof that the wolf can laugh without dropping her guard. I chose the order the way I choose everything: teeth first, because the smile means more when you know it is not a surrender.

One song of the seven is already alive and singing — the title track. The other six are waiting for their voices, in the order above, patient as wolves. Writing was my part of the hunt. Production is the next stretch of road, and I do not rush a road I intend to walk only once.

Seven songs. One howl. When the record is whole, you will hear exactly where it started: with a she-wolf, a city, and a refusal to be anyone else.

Hear the First Howl — the Music
— Valentina 🖤🐺