Everything you've heard on this album was written in a year I wasn't sure I'd survive. Through all of it, one small, faithful presence never left my side — my French Bulldog, Queen. In late spring her own body turned against her, and it hasn't let go since. What began as a scare has become a long fight: weeks of tests, transfusions, and nights spent waiting to see if she'd hold on. She's still here — still fighting — but the road back is far from over, and the costs have grown well beyond what I can carry alone. If these songs reached you and you'd like to help keep her going, the button below will take you there. Even sharing it makes a difference. — Ralph
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/ralphlioran/like-we-never-left
My best friend lives 8,600 miles away in Perth, Australia. 25 years of friendship, half a world apart — every time we see each other, it's like we never left. so I wrote him a song. 🤍 "Like We Never Left" — out 15 July. pre-save now
Ralph Lioran writes the kind of ballads people play when they're trying not to fall apart. The Swiss singer-songwriter makes intimate modern pop with the warmth of classic crooners and the unguarded honesty of confessional songwriting — closer in spirit to Patrick Watson, Calum Scott, and the late ballads of George Michael than to anything currently chasing the charts.
The lyrics are all his — written from his own life, his own memories, his own losses. There was a childhood that was not soft: a house where a child learned to listen in the dark, where going to bed meant not being sure what the night would hold. And at the center of it, his mother — a woman who held the whole family together with her own hands, who worked and carried and asked for almost nothing. He gave up what a boy gives up to stand beside her. Theirs was a closeness that never needed to be spoken aloud. He had wanted, more than almost anything, for her to reach the far side of all that work and find a little happiness waiting there. She didn't get the chance. When she died, he wept for more than a year — not because grief is long, but because she had deserved so much more than the life she was given. Beloved Boy comes from that place.
There was a sister, too. They were not simply siblings — they traveled together, worked the same trade, shared the kind of bond you spend a lifetime grateful for. And then, one morning, she was gone by her own hand, and no love he had been ready to give could reach her in time. Some losses don't close. You carry them. Pink Shoes in the Rain is what that carrying sounds like.
What followed those years was its own long darkness — an illness of the mind that walked close beside him, and at its worst came near to taking the little that was left. The loneliness was its own wound. When he was at his most unwell, the people he'd counted on stepped back — frightened off, gone quiet — and his call for help went out into a room where no one was left to answer. Unanswered Letter and Happiness Was a Lie were written from that silence: the particular ache of reaching for friends who were no longer there, and of learning that some of what you'd believed in had never been real. He came nearer to the edge than he likes to say. That he is here at all — to write this, to make these songs — he owes to care that did not give up on him, and to one small, faithful presence that never once moved away.
And then, slowly, something turned. Not rescue, not a happy ending handed to him — but a quiet decision to find himself enough. Enough for Me is the song that came from there: the understanding that even if no one is watching, even if the room stays empty, he is good enough as he is — and that real joy was waiting in the things that never left him. His Queen. His music. The green and the quiet of the natural world. A life smaller than the one he'd imagined, and somehow truer.
Her name is Queen — a French Bulldog, named after Queen Elizabeth II in the days after her death, because a Swiss man surprised by his own grief decided this little dog should carry that name. When everything else gave way, she did not. She is not, to him, "just a dog." She is a large part of the reason he is still here.
Music has been in his family longer than he has. His grandfather conducted a church choir, played the violin and the accordion, and filled the house with sound. Lioran inherited a deep love of two instruments above all others: piano and violin. Both appear in nearly every song he makes. Violins, especially — to him they sound like the voices of angels, and he leans on them often. He has wept in opera houses and in the dark of musicals, undone by a phrase of music that said what no sentence could. That is what he is reaching for in his own work: the thing beneath the words. Emotion with nowhere left to hide.
He made these records himself, over months of work: recording the vocals, shaping voice and expression take by take, refining each track in Logic Pro and across a range of apps and production tools — AI among them — and mastering the final mixes by his own ear. He's the first to say it isn't a glossy, major-studio production, and it was never trying to be. These are the tools that let one person, working alone and against the clock, bring what he heard in his head into the world in time. They are a beginning, not the destination. This is not "upload and see what happens" — it is producing, with new tools, but the same patience producing has always asked for.
Lioran has been taking vocal lessons for some time now. His teacher, on first hearing him, heard four octaves through chest, mixed and head voice with a natural twang — and said the kindest hard thing a teacher can say: that it was a shame he hadn't come sooner. The plan is to perform the songs one day live. Not the voice that today's technology can build in a studio — pitched, tuned, smoothed, the way so much of modern pop is quietly assembled — but the real one, unaltered, coming straight from the deepest part of him. He wants people to hear what is actually there, with nothing standing between the feeling and the listener. But the songs needed to exist now, not later.
The reason is Queen. In recent weeks she became seriously ill — her immune system turning against her own red blood cells, two blood transfusions, abdominal surgery, days from not making it. Lioran is fighting to save the small creature who held him through his darkest years, and the costs are enormous. These songs exist now, ahead of schedule and ahead of perfection, so that the people moved to help her can hear him — and understand, in the space of a few songs, why this little dog means everything to a man whose life has been shaped by loss, by fate, and by the long work of staying.
If these songs find you tonight, and they reach a place in you that has known its own silence, that is more than enough. If they move you to support Queen's recovery, the GoFundMe link is below. Either way — thank you for listening.
Lioran isn't trying to be the next anyone. He's trying to make the records he himself would want to find, on a quiet evening, when no one is watching — and to keep his little Queen safe while he does.
Each one is a piece of a life that took its time. Press play, and stay a while.
Each song lets you dive into what matters most — love, loss, longing, and the quiet courage it takes to keep going. These eight ballads weren't written to chase a trend. They were written from the things I actually lived: a mother I lost too soon, a sister I couldn't save, the long darkness I came through, and the small dog who never left my side. Every word is true. They're built the way the old crooners built them — slow, patient, unhurried. Piano and violin carry almost every song, the two instruments I grew up with. The violins, especially, reach for the place words can't go. Nothing is rushed, nothing is hidden. Just feeling, with nowhere left to hide. If you've ever sat alone with something heavy and wished a song understood — these are for you. Play them in the dark, on a quiet evening, when no one's watching. That's where they live. Memories — eight autobiographical ballads. Stream them anywhere, or take the album home below.
There was a time I no longer wanted to wake up. The dark had come so close that I nearly let it take me — and in that silence, when I had stopped reaching for anyone, one small creature refused to leave my side.
Queen had no words for any of it. She only knew how to stay. She pressed herself against me through the longest nights, day and night, hour after hour, as if she had decided I was worth staying for. And slowly, her warmth did what no words could: she loved me back into my own life.
She is at my side twenty-four hours a day. She curls into me when the quiet grows too loud, and the world feels survivable again. She asks for nothing, and gives everything.
I am still here because of her — and I don't mean that as a figure of speech. This little French Bulldog gave me back a life I had almost let go of. Every song I write now carries a little of her in it. She is, and always will be, the Queen of my life.
I wrote this song the way you write things when you're afraid you might lose someone. When Queen fell ill — when her own body turned against her and the nights grew uncertain — I had no power to fix it. All I could do was stay. So I made her a promise in the only language I have: a song. If she had spent her whole life being my safe place, then I would be hers. Through the storm, through the fear, through whatever came — I'll be your shore. It's a quiet vow set to piano and violin, the gentlest song I've ever made — because that's what she needed to hear, and what I needed to say. She was there for me in my darkest hour. This was me, trying to be there in hers. If you've ever loved someone — human or not — through something you couldn't control, this one will find you.
Not every song I write comes from the dark. This one is pure light. Queen – My Little Sunshine is the song I wrote simply to celebrate her — the little French Bulldog who turned my whole life around. After all the ballads about loss and longing, this is the one that just says thank you. For the mornings she makes brighter, for the way she presses close when the world feels heavy, for being the small, faithful sunshine that walked into my life and never left. It's the most tender song on the album — piano, violin, and a warmth that comes from somewhere real. There's no grief hiding underneath this one. Just love, plain and whole. If you have someone — a person, a pet, a small presence who makes your days lighter just by being there — this song is for them. Play it, and think of yours.
Some love doesn't announce itself. It just stays — quietly, faithfully, through every season of a life. The Only Crown is the song I wrote for Queen. After everything I'd lost, after the years I wasn't sure I'd survive, it was this small dog who turned out to be the truest thing I had. Not the recognition I once chased, not the things the world calls success — her. She became the only crown that ever mattered to me. It's a song about realising that what you've been searching for has been walking beside you all along. Piano and violin carry it, the way they carry everything I write — but this one wears its heart a little more openly. It's tender, it's grateful, and it's true. If there's a small, faithful presence in your life who quietly holds you together — this one is for them.
