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Musician MILCK Reveals the Story Behind Her Viral Women’s March Song ‘Quiet’

Between the fiery speeches from activists and the rhythmic chants of millions of attendees, most of the buzzed-about moments from the Women’s March on Washington were loud and hard to ignore. But in the days following the event, a deeply moving clip that focused on a smaller, quieter pocket of the crowd also went viral.

Captured in the nearly three-minute video, a group of women — led by Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter MILCK — harmonize as bystanders begin to take notice. The lyrics of the song, “Quiet,” touch on a woman’s internal struggle between meeting society’s expectations (“put on your face / know your place”) and voicing her own opinion. It’s a struggle most can empathize with easily, though the 30-year-old songwriter drew on her personal experiences.

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Milck Connie Lim
Connie Lim aka Milck. Rachael Lee Stroud

“I was in a relationship when I was 14, and it became a relationship of manipulation and control and making me feel unsafe until I did what he wanted,” she tells Us. “It took me 11 years to realize I was the victim.” Combined with challenges she faced in the music industry as an Asian-American woman, MILCK felt compelled to capture her emotions the best way she knew how: setting words to notes. “I was sure that if I was feeling it that strongly that not only were other Asian-Americans feeling this way, but [so were] women of all different races, background, and political beliefs.”

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Milck Women's March protest song
Milck performing with her group at the Women’s March on Washington on January 21, 2017.

She initially recorded the track on her own, but the idea of a flash-mob choir started percolating as she and her friend Krista Suh, co-creator of the famous P***yhat Project, began discussing plans to attend the January 21 march in Washington. MILCK created a 10-part harmony and recorded each section individually before reaching out to a cappella groups in the D.C. area. Between a few Skype calls and one in-person rehearsal, the volunteers learned the arrangement. “When there’s 25 women of similar consciousness and a desire for a better world, singing together, there’s no other therapy out there for this,” MILCK says, noting that the group ranged from a college sophomore to a middle-aged mother of three sons.

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The song quickly spread across the internet, catching the attention of celebrities including Gillian Anderson and Samantha Bee, who invited MILCK and two participating a capella groups (Capital Blend and the GW Sirens) onto her show to perform. “It’s been a whirlwind,” MILCK says. “My family is super excited and my sister is a surgeon, and she’s been joking like, ‘OK, well, it’s time for me to retire! I’m gonna follow you!’”

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