Sari Lightman Channels Two Mystics on “Give It All Up”

Last month, Sari Lightman stepped out from her work with Tasseomancy and Lightman & Lightman with a solo debut, “The Way I Saw You.” That song serves as the title track to an album produced by Meg Duffy, out June 26 on Night Bloom Records. Now she offers a second glimpse with “Give It All Up,” a track that turns a quiet, conceptual corner.

Lightman originally wrote the song for Lightman & Lightman’s Sister Smile, drawing from themes of feminine mysticism. Here, she reframes it as a supernatural interview between two historical figures: Jeanine Deckers, the Belgian nun known as the Singing Nun, and Etty Hillesum, the Jewish diarist who chronicled life in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. The structure is conversational—each leading line met with a response, the answers landing with an ominous, prophetic weight.

Duffy pushed for a stripped-down arrangement, and the result leans into meditation more than drama. Lightman’s voice holds the center, unhurried and clear, while the production subtracts rather than adds. She describes the choice as a nod to Neil Young’s habit of reinterpreting his own songs—a “personal cover” in tribute to the self.

The track doesn’t announce itself loudly, but it sharpens the album’s spiritual inquiry. Where “The Way I Saw You” introduced Lightman’s solo voice, “Give It All Up” suggests a deeper channeling, one that borrows from history to ask large questions with quiet precision.