CITOVITZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY

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CITOVITZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY Unveil New Single & Lyric Video ‘Made In Poland’

Posted by tarjavirmakari on August 4, 2026
Posted in: Int. News, News. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Some songs choose their release date. Made In Poland — the new single from CITOVITZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY — arrived on August 1st, 2026. Warsaw Rising Day. The day Poland honours the 1944 Uprising — one of the most devastating and most defiant acts of resistance in European history. The day a city chose to fight knowing the odds and fought anyway.

It was not planned. It was simply right.

“I did not sit down and decide to release on August 1st because it was symbolic. The song was ready, and when I looked at the date, I understood that the song had always known when it wanted to arrive. Some things choose their own timing.” — Andrzej Citowicz

‘Made In Poland’ is available as an official lyric video on YouTube:

THE SONG: ROOTS, BLUES, AND A FATHER’S HANDS

Made In Poland is a blues-soaked hard rock song built from the most personal materials Andrzej Citowicz has ever assembled. Born in Wałbrzych, Poland, and now based in Cairo, Egypt, Andrzej has spent decades carrying his homeland inside him — through every city, every studio, every late night with a guitar that still speaks the language of the place that made him.

The song is not about geography. It is about inheritance. About the specific, irreplaceable things a father passes to a son not with words but with his hands. About what it means to be made somewhere — to carry that place in your body, your instincts, your musical DNA — long after you have physically left it behind.

At the heart of the lyric sits one of the most quietly devastating passages Andrzej has ever written:

My father built my first analog amp from an old radio.
Old valves, dusty wires, a speaker with one more song to give.
He didn’t hand me money — he handed me a reason.
Every guitar I’ve played since still begins in that little box.

Arkadiusz Citowicz left when his son was 16 years old. Too soon. But what he left behind — a handmade amplifier built from old radio parts, valves, and dusty wires, assembled by a father who had no formal engineering training and every reason to try — became the foundation of everything that followed. Every chord. Every album. Every song released from a home studio in Cairo thirty years later.

“I have released many songs. But I have never written a line that felt as true as that one. He didn’t hand me money — he handed me a reason. Every guitar I have ever played still begins in that little box. That is not poetry. That is just what happened.” — Andrzej Citowicz

THE POLISH CONNECTION: SAMBORA, WAŁBRZYCH, AND THE BLUES

Made In Poland draws direct inspiration from Richie Sambora’s 1991 solo debut Stranger In This Town — a blues-drenched, deeply personal record that Andrzej counts among the most formative listening experiences of his life. What he did not know as a teenager hearing that record for the first time was that the man playing those guitars carried Poland in his blood.

Richie Sambora is of Polish descent on both sides of his family. His paternal grandfather Jan Sambora emigrated from Jodłowa, Poland. His maternal grandfather Alexander Sienila was also a Polish immigrant. The surname Sambora itself is Polish. The boy from New Jersey who became one of rock’s most celebrated guitarists was, in the most literal sense, shaped by the same soil that shaped the boy from Wałbrzych listening to him on a television screen decades later.

“I did not know Sambora was Polish when I first heard Stranger In This Town. When I found out, something clicked into place that I had always half-understood but could not name. The blues he played — that specific emotional directness, that refusal to hide behind technique — it felt familiar in a way I could not explain. Now I think I understand why.” — Andrzej Citowicz

That blues tradition — emotional, direct, built on the guitar as a voice rather than a tool — runs through every note of Made In Poland. The song is not a tribute to Sambora. It is a conversation with him. One Polish soul speaking to another across decades and oceans, through the shared language of six strings and honest feeling.

AUGUST 1ST: THE DAY THAT CHOSE THE SONG

The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 began on August 1st. For 63 days, the Polish Home Army fought the German occupation of Warsaw — outnumbered, outgunned, and ultimately unsupported by the Allied forces whose help they had been promised. Over 200,000 Polish civilians died. The city was systematically destroyed. And yet the uprising has never been remembered as a defeat. It has always been remembered as a choice — the choice to stand, to resist, to insist on dignity even when the outcome was already written.

Andrzej Citowicz released Made In Poland on this day not to make a political statement but to make a personal one. He is Polish. He was born in Wałbrzych, in the south of Poland, in a country that has spent its entire history surviving things that were supposed to destroy it. That survival — stubborn, proud, never quite explained to those who did not grow up inside it — is in the music whether he intends it to be or not.

“Being Polish means something specific that is very difficult to translate. It is not nationalism. It is not nostalgia. It is the particular weight of belonging to a place that has always had to fight for the right to exist — and has always found a way to keep existing anyway. That is in every note I play. I cannot take it out even if I wanted to.” — Andrzej Citowicz

RETURNING HOME

Made In Poland arrives as Andrzej prepares to return to Poland for the first time in years — with his wife Shereen and, for the first time, with his daughter Esther. A year that brought loss and miracle in equal measure. A year that stripped everything back to what actually matters. A year in which the distance between Cairo and Wałbrzych stopped feeling like geography and started feeling like time — time he wants back, or at least time he wants to finally close.

The song is a homecoming before the homecoming. A declaration made in music because some things need to be said in the language you trust most.

“I am made in Poland. That does not change because I live somewhere else. The guitar my father made possible, the music Sambora showed me was in me, the blues that arrived through a television screen in Wałbrzych when I was young — all of it is Polish. All of it is mine. Made In Poland is just the first time I have said that out loud.” — Andrzej Citowicz

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Andrzej Citowicz is a Polish-born guitarist, composer, and songwriter based in Cairo, Egypt, recording under the name Citovitz and The Fireflies of February. A former recording artist on Down Boys Records — the label co-owned by Erik Turner and Jerry Dixon of Warrant — he has built an extensive independent catalogue including the Living Room Rockstar series (Album of the Year 2025, Metal Impact Radio), Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996, For The Hawk, and the upcoming album Acoustism, due in autumn 2026. His work has been covered by Metal Shock Finland, Metal Hammer Italy, Rock Queen Reviews, MetalPedia MX, Metalheads Forever, and Breathing The Core, among others.

Made In Poland is available as an official lyric video on YouTube. Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf7xbIc68d4

SINGLE DETAILS
Single: Made In Poland
Music, Guitars & Lyrics: Andrzej Citowicz
Released: August 1st, 2026 — Warsaw Rising Day
From the upcoming album: Acoustism — Autumn 2026
Artist: Citovitz and The Fireflies of February
Inspired by: Stranger In This Town — Richie Sambora (1991)

STREAM & WATCH
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrzejCitowicz
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7aIeg5DyI7xwkYLsBgJNWf
Instagram: https://instagram.com/citovitz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citovitz/

℗© 2026 Citovitz and The Fireflies of February / Andrzej Citowicz

CITOVITZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY Release First Single & Lyric Video ‘By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human’ from Upcoming Album “Acoustism”

Posted by tarjavirmakari on July 14, 2026
Posted in: Int. News, News. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

In the middle of summer 2026 — while the world outside grew louder and hotter and less certain of itself — Andrzej Citowicz sat down in his home studio in Cairo and finished a song that had been pressing against the inside of his chest for a very long time.

The result is By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human — the first official single from Acoustism, the forthcoming album from Citovitz and The Fireflies of February, scheduled for release in autumn 2026. The single is available now on all major streaming platforms and the official lyric video is available on YouTube.

It is one of the most direct, most unflinching, and most necessary pieces of music Andrzej has ever released.

THE WORLD THAT MADE THIS SONG

There are songs that arrive from craft. And there are songs that arrive from necessity — from the specific pressure of living through a moment in history that demands a response. By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human is the second kind entirely.

The lyric does not soften its diagnosis. It looks at what modern civilisation has done to itself — the trading of truth for comfort, love for pride, humanity for the kind of progress that turns out to be organised sinking — and it refuses to look away. Every generation reaches farther, the second verse observes, finding less within its reach. It is the most concise summary of the modern condition Andrzej has ever compressed into a single line.

“The mirror never lied to us — we simply learned to celebrate.”
— from By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human

But the song is not nihilism. It is grief — which is an entirely different thing. Grief implies that something worth mourning was lost. That the person doing the grieving once knew what it felt like to be more than what they have become. The chorus does not condemn so much as mourn. And the outro — perhaps the most quietly devastating lines Andrzej has ever written — does not end in accusation but in hope worn thin:

“If tomorrow still remembers us — let it remember we tried.”
— from By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human

That line, Andrzej says, arrived last. And when it did, he knew the song was complete.

“I did not write this song to point fingers. I wrote it because I looked around at the summer of 2026 — at everything the world was carrying, at everything my own life had been through in the past year — and I needed to say something true. Something that did not flinch. This is that song.”
— Andrzej Citowicz

THE SOUND: WHERE ALTER BRIDGE MEETS UNPLUGGED BON JOVI

Musically, By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human exists in a space that Andrzej has been approaching his entire career but has never quite occupied so completely until now. The acoustic version carries the intimacy and emotional weight of the great unplugged rock tradition — Bon Jovi’s MTV Unplugged performances, the raw confessional energy of a guitar placed directly against a lyric with nowhere to hide. Clean, wide open, and devastating in its simplicity.

“The acoustic version asks you to sit with the words .Some people need the quiet to hear clearly…”
— Andrzej Citowicz

ACOUSTISM: THE ALBUM THAT IS COMING

By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human is the first window into Acoustism — the most ambitious and most personal album Andrzej Citowicz has ever announced. Due for release in autumn 2026, the album is built around the intersection of Andrzej’s acoustic guitar work and his identity as a person on the autism spectrum — his ICD-11 diagnostic code, 6A02, has already given its name to one of the album’s tracks — alongside songs that document the extraordinary personal journey of the past twelve months.

A life-changing year. The loss of a beloved friend and mentor — H — whose memory lives inside the For The Hawk album released earlier in 2026. The discovery of an adult daughter, Esther, whose arrival Andrzej describes simply as a miracle beyond imagination. The grief. The gratitude. The bittersweet, overwhelming experience of finding that life, in its fifties, still has the capacity to rearrange everything you thought you understood about yourself.

All of that is inside Acoustism. By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human is its opening declaration — the song that sets the emotional and philosophical stakes for everything that follows.

“This album is unlike anything I have made before. Not because I planned it that way. Because life made it that way. I am a different person than I was twelve months ago. The music had no choice but to reflect that.”
— Andrzej Citowicz

ANDRZEJ CITOWICZ: THE LIVING ROOM ROCKSTAR

Born in Wałbrzych, Poland, and now based in Cairo, Egypt, guitarist ad songwriter, Andrzej Citowicz has spent his career building one of the most quietly determined independent music projects in contemporary rock. Recording under the name Citovitz and The Fireflies of February, he operates entirely without label support — writing, performing, producing, mixing, and mastering from his home studio, with Suno AI serving as his virtual band alongside his own guitar work and the lyrical contributions of his wife, Shereen Shoukry Citowicz.

His musical DNA runs deep in the classic rock and power ballad tradition — Bon Jovi’s New Jersey and Blaze of Glory eras, Def Leppard’s Hysteria and Adrenalize, Desmond Child’s songwriting architecture, the neo-classical guitar vocabulary of Joe Satriani’s The Extremist. These are not influences he has moved on from. They are the foundation everything else is built on — and By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human demonstrates exactly what that foundation looks like when it is carrying the full weight of a life examined honestly.

2026 has been Andrzej’s most prolific and most personal year to date. Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996 — released April 13th — completed songs written between the ages of 14 and 20, discovered on old tape cassettes. For The Hawk — released May 4th, Star Wars Day — honoured the memory of a beloved friend and mentor. And now Acoustism arrives in autumn, carrying everything the year has taught him about loss, identity, love, and what it means to still be here.

“The guitar is always first. It has always been first. Modern technology helps me build what I hear around it. But what I hear — I have been hearing since the early 1990s. That has never changed. And it never will.”
— Andrzej Citowicz

SINGLE & ALBUM DETAILS

Single: By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human
Versions: Acoustic Version
Music, Guitars & Lyrics: Andrzej Citowicz
Available: All major streaming platforms — now
Lyric Video: YouTube — now
Album: Acoustism — Autumn 2026
Artist: Citovitz and The Fireflies of February

STREAM & WATCH
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrzejCitowicz
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7aIeg5DyI7xwkYLsBgJNWf
Instagram: https://instagram.com/citovitz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citovitz/

By The Time You Die, You’re Barely Human — Out Now
First Single from Acoustism — Coming Autumn 2026
Citovitz and The Fireflies of February

℗© 2026 Citovitz and The Fireflies of February / Andrzej Citowicz

CITOVITZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY Release New Album “For The Hawk” & Lyric Video ‘I Don’t Have To Hide’ on Star Wars Day, May 4th!

Posted by tarjavirmakari on May 4, 2026
Posted in: Int. News, News. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Some albums are planned. Some are demanded — by grief, by love, by the kind of loss that leaves a silence so wide you have no choice but to fill it with the only thing you know.

“For The Hawk” is the new release from Citovitz and The Fireflies of February — the recording project of Polish-born guitarist, composer, and songwriter Andrzej Citowicz, based in Cairo, Egypt. It is available now on all major streaming platforms worldwide. And it arrives on a date that was never truly a coincidence. The official lyric video for ‘I Don’t Have To Hide’ — released also today with the album premiere, May 4th — is available now on YouTube:

May 4th. Star Wars Day. The day the world celebrates the Light Side of the Force.

He was always Light Side. Not once. Not ever, did he choose anything else.

THE HAWK
His name is not printed here. Those who knew him need no introduction. Those who didn’t will understand everything they need to know from the music itself.

He was a friend. A mentor. A father figure to both Andrzej and his wife Shereen Shoukry Citowicz. He stood quietly in the background for years — never asking for recognition, never needing applause — and made everything around him better simply by being present. He was the kind of person who would die for the people he loved without hesitation, and never once mention it afterward. The kind of person the world produces rarely and loses too soon.

He was also a devoted Star Wars fan. A Light Side soul in every sense of that phrase — not as metaphor, but as lived practice. He chose good not because it was easy or rewarded or noticed, but because that was simply who he was.

“He stood in the background so we could stand at all. He never asked for anything. He gave everything. Love was not something he spoke about — it was something he did. Every single day.” — Andrzej Citowicz

When he was gone, Andrzej and Shereen faced what so many have faced before them — the impossible task of responding to an absence that language cannot adequately address. They did what they have always done. They turned to music.

A BLESSING, A CURSE, AND THE WEIGHT OF FRIENDSHIP
For The Hawk did not begin as an album. It began as a song — Love Is All We Need — written in the spirit of Bon Jovi, warm and wide open and completely unapologetic in its belief that love is the hardest, strongest, most load-bearing thing a human being can carry. Shereen wrote the lyrics as a tribute. As his message, returned to the world in the only form she and Andrzej knew how to give it.

Then the grief kept arriving. And the songs kept coming with it.

This Is One’s For the Hawk. We Are The Good Guys. I Don’t Have To Hide. Love Is All We Need. Each track arrived from the same source — the specific, irreplaceable ache of losing someone who shaped you. Someone whose guidance you did not fully appreciate until the guidance was no longer there. Someone whose friendship was so present, so reliable, so quietly foundational, that you only began to understand its full weight when it was no longer something you could reach for.

“Music is all I can give back. If there is any paying back for his love, his friendship, his heart held out for both of us — for me and for Shereen — then this is it. Every note. Every lyric. Every song on this record.” — Andrzej Citowicz

“For The Hawk” is not a grief project. It is a friendship project. It is a record about the people who stand in the background and hold everything together — unseen, unrewarded, irreplaceable. About the loyalty that does not announce itself. About the loss that does not diminish but deepens everything it touches.

Andrzej and Shereen have faced much in recent years. Loss upon loss. The kind of accumulation that would silence many artists. Instead, it has done the opposite — driving both of them deeper into the work, further into the honesty that has always defined Citovitz and The Fireflies of February at their best.

MAY THE 4TH BE WITH HIM
The choice of May 4th as the release date arrived with the particular logic of things that feel inevitable in retrospect. Star Wars Day. The day the galaxy celebrates the Light Side. The Jedi. The ones who chose good because it was right, not because it was easy — who stood in the fire and did not become it.

He was exactly that.

“I told myself it was coincidence. I know now that it was not. He was always Light Side. This was always his day.” — Andrzej Citowicz

On the day of the album’s premiere, a special official lyrics video was released for I Don’t Have To Hide — one of the most intimate tracks on the record. A song about the freedom that comes from being fully known and fully accepted by another person. The kind of freedom H gave to everyone around him, simply by being who he was.

THE MUSIC: CITOWICZ WITH GUITAR IN HAND
Musically, For The Hawk is unmistakably Andrzej Citowicz. The guitar is first. It is always first. Modern technology surrounds it — the home studio in Cairo, the production, the arrangements — but the heart of every track beats with the same pulse it always has: a guitarist who grew up in Wałbrzych, Poland, absorbing Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Desmond Child, and the great power ballad tradition of the late 1980s and early 1990s as if his life depended on it.

Because in some ways, it did.

That DNA runs through every track on this album — the melodic hooks, the emotional guitar work, the cinematic arrangements that make vulnerability feel enormous rather than small. Phil Collen’s harmonized leads. The Bon Jovi warmth that turns a love song into a declaration. The Def Leppard wall of sound that makes a chorus feel like the world opening up.

But For The Hawk is not nostalgia. It is a man with a guitar and fifty years of scars, writing songs for someone who mattered, in the only musical language that has ever felt completely honest to him.

“The guitar is always first. Modern technology helps me build what I hear. But what I hear — I have been hearing since the early 90s. That has never changed. And with this album, more than any before it, I did not want it to change.” — Andrzej Citowicz

SHEREEN: THE LYRICAL SOUL
Shereen Shoukry Citowicz is not a supporting presence on this record. She is one of its two central voices. Her lyrics — on Love Is All We Need and throughout the album’s emotional architecture — carry the particular honesty of someone who has processed grief not as a subject but as a lived experience, and found a way to transform it into something that reaches far beyond the personal.

After nearly 18 years of marriage, Andrzej and Shereen have built a creative partnership that continues to deepen and surprise. She gives him words he could not find alone. He gives her music that carries those words further than either of them could go separately. For The Hawk is their most unified and most personal collaboration to date.

“Without her — there would be nothing. Not the music. Not the courage to finish it. Not the reason to begin again every time the silence got too heavy. She is not just the person I come home to. She is the reason the guitar sounds the way it does.” — Andrzej Citowicz

AVAILABLE NOW
For The Hawk is available now on all major streaming platforms worldwide. The official lyric video for ‘I Don’t Have To Hide’ — released on the day of the album premiere, May 4th, 2026 — is available now on YouTube.
Youtube link: https://youtu.be/id41xCN6u8Y?si=KxZJTsx1GD8yoU6l

This is independent music in the truest sense. No label. No industry machine. Just a home studio in Cairo, a guitar, a marriage built partly on music, and the memory of a man who deserved to be honoured in the only way Andrzej and Shereen know how.

“May the Force be with him. It always was. Light Side. Forever.” — Andrzej Citowicz

TRACK CREDITS
Music & Guitars: Andrzej Citowicz
Lyrics: Andrzej Citowicz / Shereen Shoukry Citowicz
Recorded & Arranged: 2026
Premiere Lyrics Video: I Don’t Have To Hide — May 4th, 2026
Artist: Citovitz and The Fireflies of February
Dedicated to: H — Light Side. Forever. 🦅

STREAM & WATCH
ARTIST CONTACTS & LINKS:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7aIeg5DyI7xwkYLsBgJNWf
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrzejCitowicz
Instagram: https://instagram.com/citovitz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citovitz/

℗© 2026 Citovitz and The Fireflies of February / Andrzej Citowicz

ANDRZEJ CITOWICZ Releases Deeply Personal Full-Length Album “Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996”

Posted by tarjavirmakari on April 14, 2026
Posted in: Int. News, News. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Some albums are made. This one was found.

CITOVITZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY — the recording project of Polish-born guitarist, composer, and songwriter ANDRZEJ CITOWICZ, based in Cairo, Egypt — announce the release of Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996, a deeply personal full-length album built from original songs written between the ages of 14 and 20, discovered on two old tape cassettes, and completed three decades later in a home studio.

The album arrives in April 2026 (released yesterday on April 13th) — the same year Andrzej turns 50 — and stands as one of the most honest and emotionally complete works of his recording career.

Stream on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4fRhfDdxBsnxDjpZUrgnBd

THE CASSETTES THAT SURVIVED
The story begins not in a studio but in the quiet shock of rediscovery. Two tape cassettes surfaced — the earliest musical archive Andrzej ever created. Recorded on an old acoustic guitar in Wałbrzych, Poland, between 1990 and 1996, the demos were raw and unfinished. Some had lyrics. Others were just chord progressions, melodies without words — ideas a teenage boy could hear in his head but was not yet equipped to complete.

They were put away. Life filled the space between then and now. Love, loss, marriage, grief, survival, and the long slow work of understanding who you are. And when those cassettes were finally played again, Andrzej heard not relics — but blueprints. Songs that had always known what they wanted to be. They had simply been waiting for the life that would finish them.

“This is the next chapter of my music journey. I found old tape cassettes. Two of them. My first songs from 1990 to 1996. Some with lyrics. Some without. Just ideas a kid couldn’t finish yet. I wasn’t ready then. I am now.”

BON JOVI, DEF LEPPARD, AND THE SOUND OF A GENERATION
To understand Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996, you need to understand what was playing when these songs were first written. Bon Jovi’s New Jersey era. Def Leppard’s Hysteria and Adrenalize. Richie Sambora’s guitar work. Desmond Child’s songwriting architecture. The Europe of Out of This World. Whitesnake. Winger. These were not influences — they were the air Andrzej breathed as a teenager discovering what music could do to the human chest.

That DNA runs through every track on this album — the melodic power ballad structures, the emotional guitar hooks, the stacked harmonies and cinematic arrangements. But Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996 is not nostalgia. It is a conversation between a boy who absorbed those sounds in the early 1990s and a man who has spent thirty years learning what to do with them.

“Bon Jovi’s Always premiered in late 1994. I was 18. I sat down with my guitar and recorded chords that same week — just the feeling.

The Def Leppard influence runs equally deep — not just in the guitar tones and production choices, but in the philosophical approach to the power ballad as a vehicle for emotional truth. Phil Collen and Steve Clark’s harmonized guitar work, the wall-of-sound production of Mutt Lange, the way Hysteria made vulnerability feel enormous — these are the standards Andrzej measured himself against as a teenager and continues to reach toward today.

THE TITLE TRACK: WHERE THE ALBUM FINDS ITS NAME
Beautiful Damage — the title track — is the song that gives the entire project its emotional compass. Written in the early 1990s and completed in 2026, it speaks of lost youth not with bitterness but with the strange, hard-earned gratitude of someone who survived long enough to understand what those years were actually worth.

On this track alone, Andrzej is joined by his longtime creative partner and bassist Patryk Szymański — a collaborator of more than a decade, and in every meaningful sense, a brother. Patryk’s bass work on the title song does not simply anchor the rhythm. It speaks its own truth through the arrangement, responding to and deepening the emotional content of the track in the way that only years of musical trust can produce.

“Sometimes you need 50 years of scars to finish what you started at 14 — and left behind in your twenties. I wasn’t ready to write these words then. I needed everything that happened in between to understand what this song was always about.”

“Patryk’s bass on Beautiful Damage says things I didn’t even know the song needed said. That is what happens when you make music with someone you truly trust. They hear what you can’t yet hear yourself.”

Watch Beautiful Damage lyric video here:

A SONG FOR ESTHER: SHEREEN’S GIFT
Among the songs on Beautiful Damage: 1990–1994, one stands apart in origin and meaning. A Song For Esther was written for a very special person — and it was Shereen Shoukry Citowicz, Andrzej’s wife of nearly 18 years, who added her touch, her heart, and her voice to bring it fully to life.

Shereen has become one of the most significant creative forces in Andrzej’s musical world. She is not a background presence. She is a full collaborator — her lyrical voice, her emotional instincts, and her willingness to place the most honest parts of herself inside a song have shaped some of the most powerful work Citovitz and The Fireflies of February has ever released.

On A Song For Esther, her contribution is both personal and profound. The song exists because of a person who mattered. Shereen made sure the music was worthy of that person.

“Shereen gave this song what I could not give it alone. She understood who it was for and what it needed to say. Her voice, her heart — they are woven into every note of it. I am grateful every day that she walks this musical journey with me.”

THE SONGS AND THEIR MEANING
Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996 is a collection that moves across thirty years of unfinished business. A Song For Esther carries the quiet, irreplaceable weight of a song written for someone specific and made complete by love.

Every song on this album was written during the years when music is absorbed most completely — the teenage years, the early twenties, the period when the heart is fully open and the vocabulary to describe what it feels has not yet arrived. That vocabulary exists now. The album is the proof.

“These are not old songs given a new coat of paint. They are finally what they always wanted to be. The demos were the bones. 2026 gave them everything else.”

THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPLETION
Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996 arrives in the same year as Andrzej’s 50th birthday — the same year he released the My Revenge EP as a declaration of survival. Where that EP looked across fifty years of living, this album reaches back to the very beginning — to the bedroom in Wałbrzych, the acoustic guitar, the cassette player, the boy who felt everything and wrote it down before he understood what he was writing.

Completing these songs was not an act of nostalgia. It was an act of responsibility. To the boy who recorded them. To the music that survived. To the life that made finishing them possible.

“The world is too crazy to wait with dreams. Time to finish them.”

Andrzej Citowicz operates entirely independently — no label, no mainstream industry support, no compromise. His home studio in Cairo is where every note of this album was shaped and recorded. The living room rockstar, as he has called himself — building something real and permanent from the most personal materials available: memory, survival, love, and the guitar his late father Arkadiusz hand-built an amplifier for, all those years ago in Poland.

TRACK CREDITS
Music & Guitars: Andrzej Citowicz
Bass on ‘Beautiful Damage’: Patryk Szymański
Vocals & Heart on ‘A Song For Esther’: Shereen Shoukry Citowicz
Lyrics: Andrzej Citowicz / Shereen Shoukry Citowicz (where credited)
Originally Recorded: 1990–1996 (acoustic and early electric guitar demos on tape cassette)
Completed & Arranged: 2026
Artist: Citovitz and The Fireflies of February

STREAM & WATCH – ARTIST CONTACTS & LINKS:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7aIeg5DyI7xwkYLsBgJNWf
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrzejCitowicz
Instagram: https://instagram.com/citovitz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citovitz/

Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996 — April 2026
Citovitz and The Fireflies of February

℗© 2026 Citovitz and The Fireflies of February / Andrzej Citowicz

CITOVITZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY Release ‘Light Up The World’ – Final Christmas Single Caps Two-Month Creative Journey

Posted by tarjavirmakari on December 18, 2025
Posted in: Int. News, News. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

ANDRZEJ CITOWICZ and his wife SHEREEN, performing as CITOVITZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY, have released “Light Up The World,” the culminating single from an intensive two-month period of Christmas and holiday songwriting. Available now on all major streaming platforms with an official lyric video on YouTube, the track represents both the finale of their seasonal collection and a defining statement about finding light in darkness.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0PO9eNDCgz3BLaoZOz9u46

Watch the Lyric video for Light Up The World:

THE TWO-MONTH JOURNEY

Over the past two months, Citowicz has created a substantial body of Christmas and holiday music—songs that blend hard rock sensibilities with traditional holiday spirit, ranging from full-throttle rock arrangements to intimate, contemplative moments.

“I wrote a lot of Christmas and holiday songs these last two months,” Citowicz explains. “More or less hard rock, but always with that touch of holiday spirit. Some were aggressive, some were tender, but all of them were honest. ‘Light Up The World’ is the one that brings it all together—it’s how we’re choosing to end this musical preparation for Christmas time.”

The creative surge resulted in multiple releases, including the Italian-language duo tracks “Notte Di Stelle” and “Un Altro Domani,” the reimagined “Not So Silent Night” EP featuring instrumentals transformed with vocals, and various standalone holiday compositions. “Light Up The World” arrives as the final piece—the statement that completes the seasonal narrative.

A DUO DEFINED BY SURVIVAL

“Light Up The World” marks another collaboration between Citowicz and his wife Shereen, continuing their journey as a musical duo that began with their first recordings together earlier this year.

“This is another duo with my wife, Shereen, and we are incredibly proud of it,” Citowicz states. “Every song we’ve made together this season has been special, but this one feels like the culmination. It says what we’ve been trying to say all along—that you can be broken and still bring light. That pain doesn’t disqualify you from hope.”

The couple’s collaborative work emerged from profound personal tragedy. Following the loss of their stillborn son Jonasz at 17 weeks—an event that became the central focus of Citowicz’s recent album Living Room Rockstar Part 2—music became their shared language for processing grief and rediscovering joy.

“After Jonasz, everything changed,” Citowicz reflects. “Music had always been my therapy, my language, my way of surviving. But making music with Shereen—discovering her voice, creating these songs together—that became something new. It became our way forward, together.”

THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY CONCEPT

The artist moniker “Citovitz and The Fireflies of February” carries significant meaning, representing those who create light during the darkest seasons.

“Fireflies glow in summer, when everything’s already bright,” Citowicz explains. “But what about February? What about the coldest, darkest months? That’s when light matters most. That’s who we are—people who’ve been through the worst and still choose to glow. Not because we’re healed, not because we’re whole, but because someone else needs that light.”

This philosophy permeates “Light Up The World,” both lyrically and thematically. The song’s cover artwork—a fractured heart glowing red against darkness with fireflies escaping into the night—visualizes the central message: brokenness doesn’t preclude beauty, and wounded people can still illuminate the world for others.

LYRICS THAT CUT TO TRUTH

Shereen Citowicz contributed significantly to the song’s lyrical content, bringing raw honesty about surviving pain while choosing hope.

“Shereen writes with this honesty that destroys me every time,” Citowicz shares. “She wrote lines like ‘Light up the world, even when you’re breaking inside’ and ‘You don’t need to be healed to help heal others.’ That’s not poetry for the sake of poetry—that’s lived experience. That’s what we’ve learned by surviving together.”

The song explores counter-cultural Christmas themes: imperfection, struggle, choosing love despite pain, and the radical idea that broken people have unique capacity to bring comfort to others facing brokenness.
“Christmas songs often pretend everything’s fine,” Citowicz notes. “Everyone’s happy, everyone’s whole, everyone’s celebrating. But that’s not real life. Real life is people struggling through December, missing someone they lost, feeling broken during a season that demands joy. We wanted to make a Christmas song for those people—for us.”

MUSICAL APPROACH

Musically, “Light Up The World” balances Citowicz’s hard rock foundations with accessible holiday warmth. The arrangement features his signature guitar work—influenced by formative heroes like Jon Bon Jovi and Desmond Child—combined with contemporary production and the couple’s dual vocal approach.

“I’ve spent these two months exploring what Christmas rock can be,” Citowicz explains. “Some songs leaned heavy, some leaned soft, but all of them kept that rock spirit. ‘Light Up The World’ found the sweet spot—it’s got power, it’s got hooks, it’s got heart. It rocks, but it also comforts. That balance felt right for ending this journey.”

The production, recorded in Citowicz’s home studio in Cairo, Egypt, maintains the intimate quality that has defined his recent work while achieving professional polish suitable for mainstream streaming platforms.

SHEREEN CITOWICZ: DISCOVERING A VOICE

The project continues showcasing Shereen Citowicz’s vocal abilities—a revelation that emerged during the couple’s first musical collaborations this year after 17 years of marriage.

“We’ve been together 17 years, and I never knew she could sing like this,” Citowicz states with evident pride. “These past two months, watching her grow as a vocalist, watching her confidence build—that’s been one of the greatest gifts of this whole creative period. Her voice carries so much emotion, so much authenticity. She’s not trying to sound like anyone else. She’s just Shereen, and that’s exactly what these songs needed.”

Shereen’s contributions extend beyond vocals to co-writing and creative direction, making their duo a genuine partnership rather than a lead artist with featured guest.

PROUD OF THE JOURNEY

As “Light Up The World” releases, Citowicz expresses deep satisfaction with the body of work created during this intensive period.

“We’re proud of this,” he states simply. “Proud of the songs, proud of the work, proud of what we accomplished together. This single ended our musical preparation for Christmas time exactly how we wanted—with a message that matters, with our voices together, with something we believe in.”

He continues: “I never expected to write this many Christmas songs. I never expected to make them with my wife. I never expected any of this. But here we are, and ‘Light Up The World’ feels like the perfect way to complete this chapter. We said what we needed to say. We created what needed to exist.”

BREAKING THE SILENCE

The song’s title carries additional resonance given Citowicz’s earlier release “Not So Silent Night”—both challenging the idea that holidays should be uniformly joyful and quiet.

“These songs aren’t silent,” Citowicz notes. “They’re loud about pain, loud about hope, loud about the messy reality of being human during a season that often demands perfection. ‘Light Up The World’ is us refusing to be silent about what we’ve survived and what we’ve learned. It’s us saying—loudly—that broken people matter, that wounded hearts can still love, that you don’t need to wait until you’re healed to help someone else heal.”

A MESSAGE FOR STRUGGLING LISTENERS

Beyond artistic achievement, “Light Up The World” carries a pastoral message for listeners navigating their own darkness.

“If you’re struggling this Christmas, if you’re broken, if you’re barely holding on—this song is for you,” Citowicz offers. “You don’t need to pretend you’re okay. You don’t need to fake joy. But maybe, just maybe, you can still be a firefly. Maybe your brokenness is exactly what makes your light valuable to someone else who’s struggling. Maybe we light up the world not despite our cracks, but because of them—because the light shines through.”

LOOKING FORWARD

With “Light Up The World” concluding their Christmas collection, the couple now turns attention to future projects, including Citowicz’s ongoing work reimagining instrumental albums from 2012-2023 with vocal arrangements, and continued exploration of their duo dynamic.

“This Christmas season showed us what we’re capable of together,” Citowicz reflects. “We made a lot of music, tried different styles, pushed ourselves. ‘Light Up The World’ is the end of this particular journey, but it’s also the beginning of understanding ourselves as a duo, as creative partners, as two people who can take pain and transform it into something beautiful.”
He adds: “The fireflies will keep glowing. Even in February. Especially in February.”

AVAILABILITY

“Light Up The World” is available now on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, and all major streaming platforms. The official lyric video is available on Citowicz’s YouTube channel.

SINGLE INFORMATION:
Title: “Light Up The World”
Artist: Citovitz and The Fireflies of February (Andrzej Citowicz and Shereen Citowicz)
Genre: Christmas Rock / Holiday Music
Music & Arrangement: Andrzej Citowicz
Lyrics: Andrzej Citowicz and Shereen Citowicz
Vocals: Andrzej Citowicz and Shereen Citowicz (duo)
Production: Andrzej Citowicz
Recorded: Home studio, Cairo, Egypt
Release Date: December 2025
Available on: Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, and all major streaming platforms

STREAMING LINKS:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0PO9eNDCgz3BLaoZOz9u46
Lyric video for Light Up The World: https://youtu.be/W74SWd6O6Lc?si=vI48SK31yRt7C979

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About Andrzej Citowicz:
Andrzej Citowicz is an acclaimed Polish guitarist and songwriter currently based in Cairo, Egypt. As a former recording artist for DownBoys Records, he has built a reputation for emotionally resonant songwriting and distinctive guitar work. His music combines classic rock influences with contemporary production, creating a sound that bridges generational and cultural gaps while maintaining artistic authenticity. His YouTube channel has garnered over 70,000 views from an international audience.

Connect with Andrzej Citowicz:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7aIeg5DyI7xwkYLsBgJNWf
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrzejCitowicz
Instagram: https://instagram.com/citovitz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citovitz/

℗© 2025 Citovitz and The Fireflies of February / Andrzej Citowicz

CITOVICZ AND THE FIREFLIES OF FEBRUARY Release New Single + Lyric Video ‘Letters Never Sent’ – A Pop-Blues Meditation on Unspoken Words & Love Taken for Granted

Posted by tarjavirmakari on November 21, 2025
Posted in: Int. News, News. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Richie Sambora-Inspired Track from Living Room Rockstar Part 2 Explores Universal Theme of Words We Never Say

Cairo, Egypt – Andrzej Citowicz has released “Letters Never Sent”, a new lyric video from the critically acclaimed album “Living Room Rockstar Part 2”. The track represents one of the album’s most emotionally vulnerable moments, blending pop-blues sensibilities with the melodic hooks that defined Richie Sambora and Bon Jovi’s greatest work.

FOR A SPECIAL DEAR FRIEND
“I wrote this song for my special dear friend,” Citowicz explains. “If you know, you know. But it’s also for everyone out there who lost their loved ones. For everyone carrying words they never said.”
The song explores a theme that transcends simple categorization: “This isn’t quite a love song. Or maybe it is. Maybe it’s about what we feel when we fear losing someone from our lives. How many words we want to say, how many ‘letters’ we want to send, how we want to be better—but life writes its own scenarios and we take things for granted.”
He continues with characteristic honesty: “Cliché? Maybe. But isn’t it true?”

THE RICHIE SAMBORA INFLUENCE
Musically, “Letters Never Sent” draws deep inspiration from Richie Sambora’s guitar work and compositional approach, filtered through Citowicz’s personal lens of pop-blues and Bon Jovi-style melodic hooks.
“Richie Sambora has been one of my biggest inspirations,” Citowicz shares. “Not just as a guitarist, but as a songwriter who understood how to balance technical skill with raw emotion. The way he could make a guitar cry, the way his solos told stories—that’s what I was chasing with this song.”
The track showcases pop-blues influences married to the hook-driven accessibility that made Bon Jovi’s catalog so enduring. “I wanted something that felt like Sambora’s guitar work meeting a blues-tinged pop sensibility,” Citowicz notes. “Those melodic hooks that Bon Jovi and Sambora perfected—where you hear something once and it stays with you—that was the target.”

ABOUT THE LYRICS: CONFRONTING WHO WE’VE BECOME
Without reproducing the song’s copyrighted lyrics, Citowicz describes the thematic journey: “The first verse is about being too busy being right to see what you’re leaving behind. About holding pride like a shield when love is what you’re failing to feel. It’s about those letters we write in our heads but never send.”
The song’s structure builds dramatically through its verses. “In the second verse, the drama intensifies,” Citowicz explains. “We’re confronted with who we’ve become—looking in the mirror and barely recognizing ourselves. It’s about trading warmth for control, about being too afraid to say ‘I need you’ when it matters most.”
The bridge offers a moment of stripped-back vulnerability before the final chorus lifts with full band arrangement and key change. “That’s where we acknowledge that forgiveness isn’t written in the sky—it’s born in broken men who try,” Citowicz reflects. “It’s about loving someone, just not the right way. And trying to make it right even when it might be too late.”

DAWN RELEASE: BECAUSE DAY IS LOVE
The lyric video’s early morning release carries special significance for the artist.
“The opening riffs were born early one morning a few months ago,” Citowicz reveals. “That’s why I’m releasing this early in the morning—because day is love. There’s something about dawn that represents possibility, renewal, hope. Morning is when we get another chance to say what we didn’t say yesterday.”
This philosophy extends to the video presentation itself. “This lyric video means the world to me,” he states. “It’s being released in two parts. In the second part, the drama builds dramatically as we confront who we’ve become and what we failed to see. I wanted viewers to sit with that progression, to feel the weight of verse two.”

MUSICAL COMPOSITION: POP-BLUES MEETS ARENA ROCK
“Letters Never Sent” represents a departure from some of Living Room Rockstar Part 2’s harder rock moments, embracing instead a pop-blues foundation enhanced with the soaring hooks and melodic guitar work that defined an era.
“The verses have this blues-tinged feel, almost intimate,” Citowicz describes. “But then the pre-chorus and chorus open up with those Sambora-style hooks—melodic, memorable, emotional. It’s pop-blues at its core, but with that arena rock accessibility that makes you want to sing along even when the lyrics are breaking your heart.”
The production, handled by longtime collaborator Patryk Szymański, balances polish with rawness. “Patryk understood we needed to keep the emotion front and center,” Citowicz notes. “His bass work grounds the verses in that blues feel, but then supports the lift when the choruses soar. He helped shape this into something that honors the Sambora/Bon Jovi tradition while remaining personal and honest.”

UNIVERSAL THEMES, PERSONAL TRUTH
While written for a specific friend, “Letters Never Sent” speaks to universal human experiences of regret, unspoken love, and the fear of losing connections we’ve taken for granted.
“Everyone has someone they wish they’d spoken to differently,” Citowicz observes. “Everyone carries words they didn’t say, letters they didn’t send. This song is about that weight. It’s about pride getting in the way of love. It’s about realizing too late—or maybe just in time—that the walls we build to protect ourselves are the same walls that keep love out.”
The song’s relevance extends beyond romantic relationships. “This applies to friendships, to family, to any relationship where fear or pride or just daily life got in the way of expressing what really mattered,” he explains. “My special dear friend knows who they are. But I hope everyone who hears this finds themselves in it somewhere. We’ve all written letters we never sent.”

THE LIVING ROOM ROCKSTAR PART 2 CONTEXT
“Letters Never Sent” appears on Living Room Rockstar Part 2, Citowicz’s tribute album dedicated to his late son, Jonasz. While the album primarily deals with profound grief and loss, “Letters Never Sent” addresses a different kind of loss—the loss that happens when people are still alive but we fail to reach them.
“The album is about many kinds of loss,” Citowicz reflects. “Losing Jonasz is the central story, but it made me hyper-aware of all the other ways we lose people. Sometimes we lose them because we don’t say what needs saying. This song is about that preventable loss—the kind where people are still here, but the connection is dying because of our own failings.”

LYRIC VIDEO: VISUAL STORYTELLING IN TWO PARTS
The accompanying lyric video presents the song’s narrative in two parts, allowing the dramatic build of the second verse to land with full impact.
“Part one establishes the situation—the regret, the unspoken words, the realization that pride has been masquerading as strength,” Citowicz describes. “Part two intensifies everything. We see who we’ve become through the mirror. We acknowledge the control we chose over warmth, the lies we defended that turned to dust.”
The visual presentation emphasizes key phrases that capture the song’s emotional core, creating moments for reflection between verses. “I wanted people to sit with certain lines,” he notes. “To really feel what it means to be ‘too busy being right to see what you’ve left behind.’ To understand what it means to love someone ‘just not the right way.'”

LOOKING FORWARD: HOPE IN BROKENNESS
Despite its themes of regret and unspoken words, “Letters Never Sent” ultimately offers hope through acknowledgment and attempted reconciliation.
“The song doesn’t promise that everything gets fixed,” Citowicz clarifies. “But it shows someone trying. It shows broken men who try to make things right. That’s where hope lives—not in perfect people who never fail, but in imperfect people who acknowledge their failures and keep reaching out anyway.”
He concludes: “If this song makes even one person pick up the phone, send that message, say what they’ve been holding back—then it’s done what I hoped it would do. We all have letters we never sent. Maybe it’s time to send them.”

ABOUT LIVING ROOM ROCKSTAR PART 2
Living Room Rockstar Part 2, released in November 2025, features 13 tracks exploring themes of loss, resilience, love, and the refusal to let pain have the final word. The album is dedicated to Citowicz’s late son, Jonasz, and has received critical acclaim including a 9/10 rating from Metal Impact Radio (US) and worldwide radio play across five stations in Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK.
Recent milestones include 80,000 YouTube views and 104,800 TikTok views on posts featuring the album’s songs within days of release.

STREAMING: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/112pDW391zrgnQIKBy8D5C

CREDITS:
Music, Lyrics, Guitars: Andrzej Citowicz
Bass: Patryk Szymański

“The opening riffs were born early one morning a few months ago. That’s why I’m releasing this early in the morning—because day is love. This song is for my special dear friend, but it’s also for everyone carrying words they never said. We all have letters we never sent. Maybe it’s time to send them.” — Andrzej Citowicz

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About Andrzej Citowicz:
Andrzej Citowicz is an acclaimed Polish guitarist and songwriter currently based in Cairo, Egypt. As a former recording artist for DownBoys Records, he has built a reputation for emotionally resonant songwriting and distinctive guitar work. His music combines classic rock influences with contemporary production, creating a sound that bridges generational and cultural gaps while maintaining artistic authenticity. His YouTube channel has garnered over 70,000 views from an international audience.

Connect with Andrzej Citowicz:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7aIeg5DyI7xwkYLsBgJNWf
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrzejCitowicz
Instagram: https://instagram.com/citovitz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citovitz/

℗© 2025 Citovitz and The Fireflies of February / Andrzej Citowicz