TW: domestic violence, emotional abuse, general motherf*&kery. Honest, not graphic, but go easy, friend x
Yesterday I released my first new song in two years; the first single from my seventh solo album “House Of Stories”.
It was accompanied by my 26th homemade music video, shot in my front room last weekend, where the current version of me (very wise indeed) educates my younger self (less wise, more glittery) on a few key matters.
Turns out, wearing a lab coat makes me feel –and look – EXTREMELY clever:
The song is called “Emotional Tourist”, and it’s a fierce, wonky indie anthem / banger1 about my absolute right as an artist – and human – to tell my story.
When I write it down like that, so plainly, it seems so obvious. I believe we all have that right, and would uphold and encourage it forever and a day for anyone else. And yet, like the proverbial frog in a pot of gradually boiling water, I’ve found myself in situations over the years where this became very not-obvious to me.
With hindsight, it’s easy to dismiss the petulant ejaculations of a frustrated person as so much absolute bullshit. In the moment, mired in the relationship, it’s far more confusing when someone who supposedly loves you spends their valuable time on this planet making you feel crap.
When you choose to spend most of your time with this supposedly special someone, the things they say can start to get inside your head and form a new reality.
When your special someone tells you that you shouldn’t call yourself an “artist” because you don’t have a fine art degree, that sounds faintly ridiculous, even in the moment. But they’re really upset about this, and they do have a fine art degree, and you don’t, and maybe that is a qualification that gives you the right to call yourself an artist. What do I know? I just make stuff up and send it out into the world. I’m confused, and I really don’t want to argue about this any more.
When your special someone ostentatiously storms out of your live performance in a quiet basement venue, at the end of a night put on to honour your music- and video-making with a screening and Q&A, and they tell you when you get home later they “don’t like it when people look at you on stage”, that is pretty weird. It’s easy to clap back “Well, I’ve been doing this since I was 13, and I’ve known you for 2 years”. But it doesn’t stop the feeling that maybe this is too much to put on someone else, this artist life – oops, I shouldn’t use the a-word. Sorry.
Maybe it is horribly selfish to mine your life experiences for lyrics, as he describes it, and maybe I am a shitty person, and should shut up and find something kinder to do with my time. Maybe I should be paying for everything, as he suggests. And maybe it isarrogant and strange to stand on a stage and play music to people. I just never looked at it that way before.
When your special someone repeatedly comments on your appearance, your weight, your attractiveness, and the way you making more money than them isn’t fair, that should be a red flag red flag red flag RED FLAGGGGGGG. Simple. But you live together, and you’re trying to make things work because that’s what relationships are, right? You have to work at them. And he’s probably just trying to help.
He’s my special someone! We chose each other!
Yep. Things so easily get out of hand. Red flags are much easier to spot from a distance.
There is no situation in which I should have made it okay in my brain that he threw a bottle near me.
But – he threw it at the wall, not at me. I must have pissed him off. I was on my way out to play a gig, and he doesn’t like me doing that, remember, and somehow the conversation got out of hand, and I don’t remember exactly what I said but seemingly out of nowhere that happened, so it must have been bad.
Thank goodness I kept walking out of the house, too worried I’d miss my bus into town for soundcheck to try and figure out what had gone wrong. It was a big deal gig for me, supporting New Model Army. And it changed my life forever (but not how you think2).
I know now that I should have called the police the afternoon my house filled with smoke.
I was working upstairs in my home office, and the smoke alarm started squealing, and I started coughing, and I ran downstairs to see what was going on. Wisps of grey smoke was wafting around the living room, but I couldn’t see any flames, so I went into the kitchen and saw the oven door was open, and something inside was on fire.
In a few seconds I was able to turn the oven off, grab what I discovered to be a flaming tea towel, chuck it into the sink, turn the cold tap on, and open the back door and kitchen window to clear the room. The alarm petered out after a few minutes. Phew. Crisis averted.
But wait – the tea towel was only singed. The fire must have only just started. Where was he? I called his name. Nothing. He definitely wasn’t upstairs. I checked the rooms downstairs. Nope.
None of this made sense.
I went and stood in the backyard, trying to clear my head.
He regularly baked bread – had the bread caught fire?
(There was no sign of any bread making.)
Why was there a tea towel in the oven? Was that a bread making thing?
(A tea towel in the oven is not a bread making thing.)
OK, so just a tea towel. In the oven. On fire.
And he wasn’t home?
What. The. Fuck?
– Oh.
As the cogs slowly whirred in my brain, the smoke dissipated along with some of my mental fog. He did this on purpose.
I replayed our last conversation, something about my upcoming European tour. I was excited – it was my first time playing my own songs outside the UK. A new friend had booked the shows for me. Boyfriend was concerned about this man’s motives. I was not – I’d met him, and he seemed sound. And anyway, from years of touring in other peoples’ bands I was well practised at being careful around strangers on the road (oh, the irony).
I was secretly thrilled to be setting out on my grand solo adventure, but I knew it was a touchy subject, so I had been downplaying the whole thing. Diminishing myself, my dreams, my achievements. Even my intelligence (I hadn’t read a novel in nearly two years).
I couldn’t work out what I’d said that could have triggered this reaction.
I don’t remember feeling frightened: I’d stopped anything bad from happening, hadn’t I! Everything was clearly FINE.
I do remember, when he shuffled back in the house half an hour later, thinking “I must be a total bitch to want to say this, and there’s no going back from this if I say it out loud, but –” right before I took a deep breath and said it.
“Did you do this on purpose?”
A curt nod.
I don’t remember there being any further explanation.
I do remember saying “Okay” and that being the end of the conversation.
I didn’t break up with him.
I didn’t tell anyone.
It didn’t even cross my mind that a crime could have been committed, that I was potentially unsafe, that I should make sure someone knew what had happened. That I should, hey, go and stay somewhere else? Ask him to leave?
I think I was in survival mode. I remember thinking that I couldn’t break up with him before the tour, because he might do something to my music equipment and all my other earthly possessions, might wreck the house we were renting and cause issues with the landlord.
Isn’t it strange the way our minds work? Not once did I consider my personal safety. I didn’t think of myself as a precious thing that needed to be protected, perhaps more urgently than some guitars and microphones. I didn’t think of myself much at all.
We did break up a few weeks later, at the end of my utterly joyful European adventure tour.
He came out to meet me in Austria, and it was really weird, and we broke up twice, and when we got back to London I refused to return to Bristol with him and went and stayed with a friend for a few days (thank you forever, C).
Eventually I went back to the house and made it very clear we had broken up for good and we both had to find somewhere new to live. I remember this – he just shrugged. It wasn’t a simple process, but in July 2014 I moved into my own place, with my beloved Schnauzer Mister Benji, and could finally breathe – and read – again.
Yes, dear reader, I stayed in that house for three more months before leaving.
WTAF.
Later that year I told the story to a friend, in the jokey tone I tend to adopt when I have gained some distance from weird/sad/bad events. When I stopped talking he stayed very quiet.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He was visibly shaking. He was furious.
It was only then I realised the gravity of the situation I’d ended up in. It was only then the phrase “attempted murder” was mentioned. It still seemed entirely unbelievable to me. A misunderstanding. An exaggeration. A story no-one would believe. Sure, he’d tried to make a fire, but it hadn’t worked! I’d put it out!
It took a while to reprogram my brain after that, to remind myself that making sense of my life and my place in the world through art making, music making and writing was an entirely valid way to spend my time. That it wasn’t selfish to share my work – that, in fact, it could be an act of generosity.
My story – my version of events, my reaction to factual things that happened, my emotions, my thoughtful reflections on actions perpetrated against me – that is mine and mine alone.
My story is MY story. The other person/s present will have their own version of events, and they have every right to make their own artwork3 about that.
I say this as a reminder to YOU, friend. Your stories matter, too. You never know who you could help by sharing them.
“Direction Of Travel” (recorded in late 2014) was bleak, chilly and very sad. And over the years, many people have emailed me to say it helped them through their own hard times. I’m glad I processed those thoughts into music.
Nearly 11 years on from the events above, I continue to reserve the right to write songs about whatever I damn well please, alongside striving to be a warm-hearted, kind and empathetic human being.
My last three albums “Brace For Impact”, “Exotic Monsters” and “One In A Thousand” necessarily became more outward-looking than my first three, first because I’m a mature adult woman and because having a wonderfully supportive and happy home life doesn’t make for sad-song fodder (thanks, Tim!).
My upcoming album “House Of Stories” deals with events from my past that refuse to stay there. It’s my attempt to make something beautiful and hopefully helpful out of some really shitty situations, stabbing some bad memories in the eye with the blade of truth. A celebration of wisdom and experience, and a reminder of our own personal power to change our internal and external worlds.
But no, of course my life is not a research project for funneling other peoples’ mistakes into songs – in fact, in my previous solo incarnation as She Makes War, I spent most of the time having a go at myself rather than other people. It’s called introspection, darling.
My life’s purpose is to write truthful, emotionally resonant music.
I don’t write sad / angry songs inspired by real events and people to target them, or to provoke a reaction. I don’t want to hear from those people ever again, and the feeling is almost certainly mutual. It’s not so plain, anyway: most of the time there’s no way someone could point at a song and claim it was about them without sounding very arrogant indeed. It’s MY story, remember – not theirs.
I very rarely choose to swear in lyrics – there are usually better words to use – but if you do decide to act like a motherf*&ker, I might just call you one in a song.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Love,
Laura xxx
PS my new Penfriend album “House Of Stories” is available to order NOW on super limited vinyl, CDs and KiT hybrid digital albums, with accompanying tees, hoodies and books.
Get two songs in your inbox immediately, with another every month til the release date in April (before anyone else gets to listen).
PPS may I just allow myself a humble pat on the back for not using the words “excited” or “delighted” in a post about my new song?
PPPS this was a long one – if you got this far you deserve a treat. Go and treat yourself, you’re ace!
- The rule is, if someone else (who isn’t a friend or my husband) calls my song an “anthem” or a “banger”, then I’m allowed to call it that too. That’s just science.
↩︎ - That was the night I met the man who I would marry 3.5 years later. He ran the venue. I’d heard of him, even emailed him to ask for an opening slot for Shellac (he said no). It was all very professional – we just said hi after the show – but months later he told me he had been “intrigued” that night, and as soon as we started dating we became inseparable.
10 years later we are still inseparable, and it wasn’t until that relationship began that I learned that the “making it work” thing I’d been doing consistently with various unsuitable persons from the age of 16 was not the correct approach.
Before that, this Mark Manson article helped me greatly.
↩︎ - Though, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t want to see/hear/experience said artwork if it does come into being! You do you babe, I don’t need to get involved.
↩︎
