Song Stories & Lyrics
This album is for everyone.
It's for you
These songs are about coming out of hiding. They are for people who have experienced pain. They are for people who feel things.
In My Head / The Other Me
When creating the demo for The Other Me, I had to explain what kind of sound I was going for and I ultimately settled on “It’s a song about depression that’s not depressing.”
This song invites you into my mind at some of the darkest points in my life and hopefully resonates with listeners who have experienced the same. The problem with writing a song like this is that there had to be a conscious effort not to put it in a minor key. The jaunty melody is therefore the brave face we put on when we want the world to think we’re coping and the second verse is a plea for closeness, for someone to bring us back to some kind of sanity. In the chorus, you hear the sudden realisation that this ‘other me’ has fundamentally changed who I thought I was, and who I always hoped I’d be. When we aren’t ourselves, our actions and reactions are unfamiliar, and that can be both terrifying and liberating.
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In my head there is a demon
It kicks me out, it pulls me in.
It wears my face and bears my skin
Sticks to my teeth when I’m speaking
I wish I wish, ooh I wish it would leave
But in the meantime
I’m just trying to control the other me
Yes, I’m trying to control the other me
The other me
I part my lips
I raise my voice
I try to speak but always always
Shh
Grown ups are talking
I try to speak
To make some noise
But when I do, a silence presses down my voice
And I’m losing myself
Losing myself
And everything I ever felt
I simply cannot separate the feeling
Of losing myself
Losing myself
And everything I ever thought
Of dreaming
To be
The other me
The other me
Just hold me close
Please speak my name
Just need to feel like
Ah
Stop me from drowning
I try to feel
To make you real
And when I do, you fill the silence in my voice
And I’m losing myself
Losing myself
And everything I ever felt
I simply cannot separate the feeling
Of losing myself
I’m losing myself
And everything I ever thought
Of dreaming
To be
The other me
The other me…
It’s in the song I sing
The words I say
To make you laugh
It’s in the song I sing
The words come out
But they’re not mine.
It’s in the song I sing
The words I use
The words that hurt.
It’s in the song I sing.
The song I sing
The other me
Welcome To My World
I had this drum riff going round and round in my head for the last few years, ending with those words Welcome To My World. This song came together after the majority of the EP had been written and I think it was waiting for that moment when the theme of the songs clicked into place. There are mixed meanings in the lyrics that both invite the listener to ask questions but then do a u-turn and tell them it’s exhausting to tell the story again. Talking about how we feel is something so many people find so difficult; it makes us vulnerable. For years, I hid things, keeping secrets about what hurt me, what scared me, what made me flee, fight or freeze.
Welcome To My World, is my song of solidarity with you, to remind you that as long as you talk, someone will listen. It might take a while, but eventually you’ll get to a comfortable place where the people who matter really understand. If you take one thing away from this song, it’s a gentle nudge to invite someone into your world.
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Step into my shoes
Step out of line and into my
Perilous high heels
Stepping in time to pastures mine
You say you’re sure you know what I’ve been through
You say we walk down similar avenues
Welcome to my world
Open your eyes, love
Open them wide and look inside
It’s written in ice, love
It’ll fade by the time you close your eyes
You say you’re sure you know what I’ve been through
You say we walk down similar avenues
Welcome to my world
Just give me a moment
I’m tired of telling it again
Don’t try my patience
‘Cause I don’t have enough so you’re all out of luck
You say you’re sure you know what I’ve been through
You say we walk down similar avenues
Welcome to my world
Good Morning
Good Morning is a song about periods.
It was written as an open letter in belated solidarity with the Indiana state Periods for Politicians campaign, and grew out of a frustration at how women always seem to have their decisions made for them. I wrote this song for the women who woke up one day with one fewer choice than they had the day before. I wrote it for women across the world who still have to fight their corner for the basics, and for those whose voices are disregarded or silenced.
But since writing it, it’s become more than that and the anthem at the end is for anyone who just wants the world to know that “I know best for me.”
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Good Morning
I have to tell you
That I’ve had some trouble sleeping.
I go to bed and toss and turn
The rhythm of my body
And the weight within my head
Sets me to weeping
Each morning
I wake and prise my eyes to open
Tear myself from sheets
And greet the day.
This morning
I lost another
Or at least that’s what you tell me.
You seem to understand the red
That creeps into my bed
And holds me tightly in its grip
Stops me from sleeping
‘Til morning
Is that too much information?
You seem to be authority
On every little aspect of my body
“I know best,” says he
“I’ll tell you how to live.”
Just leave me be.
If you say you do, then follow through
Both choice and life are part of who I am
If you say you do then follow through
Don’t make the rules and otherwise condemn
I know best for me
Don’t tell me how to live
Just leave me be
This Little Bird
Women’s health has been disregarded throughout history. Let’s do the medical history calculation together: male physicians + illegal to dissect cadavers = no clue what’s going on in a woman’s body. As a woman, you were either suffering from melancholia or your womb was wandering. That’s not a joke; past physicians in Ancient Greece honestly thought the womb took a stroll to wreak havoc around the body. Hystera means uterus and it’s where we get the unscientific and dismissive term hysteria from.
This Little Bird, is pain. It’s something that is not visible to others and sometimes it’s hard to describe, to explain, to believe. But this does not make it any less real. I wrote this song to capture that feeling that a person gets when they are in pain - physical or emotional - but, because no one can see it, there’s doubt that it’s actually real. Explaining it feels like flunking a test. Did I say that right? Am I exaggerating or playing it down? Do they believe me? No pain should be disregarded, however small it seems to others.
I’ve performed this song live quite a lot this year and after every gig, there is always someone who comes up to me to say how they felt heard because they have endometriosis that took 8 years to be diagnosed, or that their wife has been struggling with a little-known condition for decades and, whilst they’ve never understood what they were going through, they believed and supported them wholeheartedly. This Little Bird seems to be the song that hits home and if it resonates with you, I hope you feel seen and heard.
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Little bird, she flies
Over the wind
Under the leaves
And on through the skies
This little bird, she sighs
Here in my arms
Hidden from sight
Unseen by their eyes
Though I hold her out to you
I can’t explain why you can’t see her
I hold her in my arms
This bird in pain
This little bird
And she sings
She sings so strong
So loud, so clear
Yet you can’t hear her
And it’s all I can do to hold her close
To make you feel her
Little bird, I’ve lied
That’s how it seems
That’s how it feels
To not be believed
Little bird, I lie
With you by my side
There’s chaos outside
But more so within
Though I hold her out to you
I can’t explain why you can’t see her
I hold her in my arms
This bird in pain
This little bird
And she sings
She sings so strong
So loud, so clear
Yet you can’t hear her
And it’s all I can do to hold her close
To make you feel her
Charades
In their 1979 album The Wall, Pink Floyd asked: “Mother, do you think they’ll drop the bomb?” More than forty years later, the world is asking the same question. I wrote this when Russia invaded Ukraine and we seemed on the verge of another Cold War.
Charades is my response to the works of Pink Floyd. Cynical Easter eggs in the song reference Time, Mother, and Pigs, and it ultimately begs the question of why nothing has changed. We are humans in this charade, an absurd pretence that all will be well as long as we are seen to be complaining or campaigning, yet continue to do nothing..
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Our dull days still tick away
And I’m still waiting for the gun to start my race
The words you gave us remain
Idolised and prophesied, still doomed to fail
We are all charades...
I hold
The hope of the past in my heart
But I know
That first step to take is the hardest choice I’ll make
We learn nothing from our mistakes
Keep telling lies, we close our eyes, don’t make it real
We are all charades…
Speak to me in your mother tongue, ‘cos I
Don’t recognise my own anymore
Speak to me, mother tell me why
Tell me why the question I ask is still the same
Oh why can’t we change?
We are all charades…
Sidelines
This has unfairly been referred to as the ‘giving up’ song, but a sideline can be temporary and even necessary.
There are those times when you need to come out of whatever spotlight you’re in, whether it’s the literal spotlight, the pressure of your ambition and career, or the expectations you or others have placed on you. At times like this, an off-grid cabin in Canada is incredibly tempting, in the same way that pulling up weeds in the allotment or sitting at home with a cat on your lap are much less terrifying choices than heading out into the city to socialise.
Sidelines’ varied rhythm mimics the heartbeat of the calm and the anxious: at once nervously tripping over itself, at other times, a long exhale of relief. The final two minutes are the chaotic thoughts and feelings finally finding a heartbeat, just when you need that moment to stop and take a breath.
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Set me down here on the sidelines
I prefer it to my pedestal
It’s enough, it is enough for me to do
Take the curtain down
Wrap it up in a box and roll a ribbon round
It’s quiet now
And that’s enough for me to do
Feels like I’m running out of time
It’s all in my mind
Don’t wanna think about the time
It’s enough
It’s enough to keep an eye from the side
I am fine here on the sidelines
Need a moment to regroup
It’s enough, it is enough for me to do
Slow the moment down
Ignore the tickety-tock
We’re gonna halt the hands of the cunning clock
Impossible for me to do
Feels like I’m running out of time
It’s all in my mind
Don’t wanna think about the time
It’s enough
It’s enough to keep an eye from the side
It is quiet on the sidelines
It’s enough, it is enough for me to do
Take a moment now
Enjoy the moment of calm that comes hand in hand
With just slowing down
And that’s enough for me to do