My song is in a film!

Most songwriters dream of one day having their song in a film soundtrack, and I’m fizzing with delight that “Dear Heart” appears in 21st century rom-com Modern Persuasion, directed by Alex Appel and Jonathan Lisecki.

Rent and stream the film online via YouTube, Google Play or Amazon Video.

Starring Alicia Witt, Bebe Neuwirth, Shane McRae, Liza Lapira and Daniela Pineda and released by Samuel Goldwyn Films, this is the real deal, and is available to stream in the UK as of earlier this week.

“Dear Heart” was released as part of my 2018 album “Brace For Impact”, and I am now making this song available on a pay what you want/can basis on Bandcamp.

CLICK HERE for your copy, and you can stream/buy the whole album here on limited edition vinyl, CD or digital download.

Another version of “Dear Heart” appears on my 2019 song collection “And Peace”, created to mark the end of the She Makes War project after ten years of releasing albums and touring.

About the song: when I’m writing music, I keep lists of my ideas – potential song names or concepts. One day while travelling I recorded a voice memo into my phone, saying “write a song to my own heart, apologising for what I’ve done”. And so I did! I loved the idea that the phrase “dear heart” could sound like I was addressing a person, while the whole time I’m actually talking to an essential body part – it’s really down to the listener to make their own meaning from my words. It was a particularly enjoyable song to perform live, because I got to show my gratitude to the audience at the end with the final lyrics, “thank you”. Thank YOU.

About the film: “Modern Persuasion” is a modern telling of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion.” Wren Cosgrove is a happy, single, and self-confessed workaholic who, after rising to the top of the corporate ladder, finds herself coming home every night to her cat. When her firm is hired by Owen Jasper, “the man who got away,” long-lost feelings are stirred, giving Wren a second chance at true love.

Click here for more and scroll down for the lyrics.

“Dear Heart” by Laura Kidd

Vena cava, cardiac, hollow vein
Powering my dreams with sweet sustain
Delicate muscle you’re not built to hate
Your quiet biology I appreciate

Dear heart I was wrong for all the things I put you through
Greasy fingermarks stain
You’ve been neglected, been abused
But I will always treasure you

Atrioventricular be true
Should’ve never let the world break you
One day you’ll slow down and so will I
At least I have time to apologise

Dear heart I was wrong for all the things I put you through
Greasy fingermarks stain
You’ve been neglected, been abused
But I will always treasure you

Dear heart I was wrong for all the things I put you through
Greasy fingermarks stain
You’ve been neglected, been abused
But I will always treasure you
For as long as I get to
Til my finger are turning blue
I will always care for you

Thank you

THANK YOU for visiting my website! I’m Laura Kidd, a music producer, songwriter and podcaster based in Bristol, UK. It’s great to meet you.

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining The Correspondent’s Club (free and paid tiers available).

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every week – choose the Freewheeler tier or upwards to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Power to the people

by Laura Kidd Letterbox Music News Process

At the end of last week, I was invited to write a piece sharing an artist’s perspective on a harsh new scheme to charge musicians to perform their own work during live-streams, the “small online live concert licence”.

I used this opportunity to try and put into words the magic that’s created between a performer and their audience and how precious that relationship is, and my article was published on Access All Areas website earlier today.

Great news – just hours later, PRS (the organisation who collects royalties on musical works in the UK) have made a U-turn. Power to the people.

In this time of international crisis, it’s been interesting to see how organisations choose to operate. Non-famous musicians are generally paid unfairly for our work, and there have always been vultures circling, but it was a low blow when the government glibly told us to “retrain” last year. Now PRS, without troubling themselves to consult members, are imposing harsh new measures to tithe us for the exploitation of our own work via their new “small online live concert licence”.

I think it’s important to remember what we’re dealing with here. My job as an artist, songwriter and producer is to pluck ideas from thin air, sculpting soundscapes from my imagination and wrapping stories tightly inside, forging a master key which has the potential to unlock the emotions of complete strangers. It’s a bonkers thing to do, and very hard to put into words, but its indefinability is part of its beauty. Nowhere is this magic more potent than in the atmosphere of a live performance, where musicians and music fans collide to create a beautiful, unique community for one night only.

I’ve always been keen to transcend the limits of the £50 support slot to connect with people further afield, so alongside regular touring I started live-streaming shows in 2013. I knew I had fans around the world who I’d never be able to play for otherwise, not to mention people with kids, irregular shift patterns, disabilities, financial burdens, physical safety concerns and any number of other issues that would prevent us from spending time together in the same room.

It wasn’t easy – the technology was clunky and confusing and things went wrong a lot. But it was worth it. For me, being an artist is about helping. A live performance is a gift I can give to someone who finds my work emotionally resonant, as well as something that benefits me. We’re all searching for moments where we feel our work is meaningful, a little boost onwards to write the next song, the next album, the next hopeful email. It’s almost nothing to do with money, though of course we also, quite reasonably, hope to be paid for our art.

When the pandemic hit last spring, streaming technology had developed to such a point that it was relatively easy for musicians to jump online and start giving of themselves to people who needed solace and connection. It was beautiful to see this generosity taking place, and to read that audience members valued this so highly.

The past 10 months have been hard on everyone. The loss of life has been devastating, the sacrifices made by keyworkers humbling, the toll on our mental health impossible to gauge. The live events industry is on its knees, artists like myself are receiving minimal or no government support, and we’re all dealing with issues around isolation, depression, existential fear and anxiety yet somehow – somehow, some artists have worked to maintain and nurture the precious connections between ourselves and our fans, this vital bridge that reminds us all that we’re not alone, that gives us hope for brighter days.

Artists have always been great at adapting and innovating – but now, at a time when many of us have lost our incomes, we’re being punished for it from the most unlikely places.  

I respect copyright – hey, I still harbour hopes the songs I send out into the world will one day race home brandishing a meaningful paycheque – but justify to me the Kafka-esque scenario where not only am I the song’s creator, master rights owner and performer but the show’s venue, promoter, lighting/sound/visual technician and publicist. Before my gig even takes place, I have to pay a fixed fee – more than double what it would cost if my gig was taking place in a venue – to an external body who will supposedly pay it back to me, as the composer, in the future (minus their cut, of course). Is this the Orwellian future we were warned about?

PRS need to remember they don’t deal in pounds and pence, numbers on a spreadsheet, projected sales and ticket prices. They deal in people – those who delve deep to create the magic, and those who sustain it with open hearts and financial generosity. Whatever needs to be done to protect this relationship must be done, or we face a far darker future than the one we’re currently living through.

Congratulations and thanks to all the organisations who lobbied for this ridiculous rule to be overturned – The FAC, Musicians Union, Music Venue Trust and more.

Now we can all get back to the business of trying to stay afloat during a global pandemic.

We’re “Exotic Monsters” indeed…

THANK YOU for visiting my website! I’m Laura Kidd, a music producer, songwriter and podcaster based in Bristol, UK. It’s great to meet you.

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining The Correspondent’s Club (free and paid tiers available).

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every week – choose the Freewheeler tier or upwards to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Exotic Monsters (22/1/21)

by Laura Kidd Creativity Homepage Feature Letterbox Music News Releases Singles

Release date: 22nd January 2021
Label: My Big Sister Recordings

GET THE SONG

+ Click to download pay what you want/can from Bandcamp.
+ Get “Exotic Monsters” plus all previous Penfriend singles when you join The Correspondent’s Club (free and paid tiers available).
+ Type “penfriend exotic monsters” into your digital music platform of choice.

ABOUT THE VIDEO

“We’re more connected than ever, yet we’re becoming more polarised. The pandemic promised a coming together of communities yet, as the third UK lockdown grinds grimly on, the people in my area of Bristol have battened down the proverbial hatches. It’s easy to feel like we live on a different planet from our fellow humans sometimes, so with this video I wanted to bring the artwork for the single to life, to suggest that perhaps the monsters we perceive to be all around us are more similar to us than different.

I spent 20 hours constructing 3D paper masks, set up a green screen in my living room and used up two of my daily exercise sessions to create this oddball trip into my imagination. Enjoy!”

ABOUT THE SONG

Penfriend, aka music producer, songwriter and multi-disciplinary artist Laura Kidd, presents “Exotic Monsters“.

Sparked by a throwaway phrase from Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”, “Exotic Monsters” is a laundry list of asynchronous human needs and desires; a reflection of our increasingly confused, disconnected and polarised lives. A timely reminder of the practice of cultivating gratitude through meditation, the song is an attempt to examine our internalised inconsistencies; the “facts” we pile up on our own backs throughout lives bombarded by airbrushed images and ads for the unattainable baubles we’re informed are essential for true happiness.

Shackled to our phones by big tech companies monetising and eroding our attention spans, feeling increasingly as though we live on a different planet to those we disagree with, chasing likes on social media while forgetting to look after our brains and our hearts…where will this all end? Some days it’s hard to believe late MP Jo Cox’s poignant words, that “we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us”.

Addressing this sense of disconnection and depersonalisation, “Exotic Monsters” evokes the menace of “Enjoy The Silence”-era Depeche Mode with a nod to the 80s- Madonna hero worship of Sky Ferreira’s “Everything Is Embarrassing” and the hypnotic synth pop of Sylvan Esso.

To quote Björk, “I’m no fucking Buddhist, but this is enlightenment”.

Fun fact: “Exotic Monsters” features several Creative Commons drum samples created by the European Space Agency, recorded at their European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands. Using sounds from space on a song about feeling disconnected from life on earth just felt wildly appropriate…

CREDITS

Written, produced, performed and recorded by Laura Kidd at The Launchpad, Bristol. Mixed by Dan Austin. Mastered by Katie Tavini. Artwork by Alex Tillbrook, concept by LK.

ESTEC drum samples pk3, pk4, pk6 and pk11 credit: Peter Kirn/CDM/ESA CC BY-SA. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

LYRICS

I try sollipsistic recreation
I crave love without abbreviation
I need time to kiss this cup of coffee
I keep letters from the one who loved me
I will take all the dreams that Hollywood promised me
I want it now

We’re exotic monsters, dead from the waist down How can I be clear?
Gratitude’s the first sign of waking
I won’t go back

Keep a kiss for me
Cos we all fall down under an international sky
Fighting to believe it’ll be all right
I’m on an extrasolar high

I seek narcissistic decoration
I crave soil, warmth, ventilation
I’d like to focus on my silent fiction
I need to kick this dopamine addiction
I dream of being someone’s happy memory I want it all

We’re exotic monsters, dead from the waist down
How can I be clear?
Gratitude’s the first sign of waking
Please don’t keep me here

Keep a kiss for me
Cos we all fall down under an international sky
Fighting to believe it’ll be all right
I’m on an extrasolar high

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New Penfriend TV live album – available for one week only!

by Laura Kidd Letterbox Music News

Surprise PWYW live album for youuuuuuuuuu! On Friday 31st July I played my third Correspondent’s Club livestream, including a brand new song called “Seventeen”, and I am making some live recordings available to ALL for one week only, just pay what you can*.

*If you’re a paying Correspondent, DO NOT FEEL ANY PRESSURE TO PAY! If money is tight, DO NOT FEEL ANY PRESSURE TO PAY! All contributions help get my new album made, so are much appreciated, but PWYW is my genuine gift to you 🙂 XOXO

Track listing:

1. Hello and welcome
2. Everything Looks Normal In The Sunshine
3. Witchy hair
4. Dispensable Body
5. On my own space station
6. Long Shadows
7. Attention Engineer and memories of Germany
8. Seventeen
9. Cancel Your Hopes
10. Thank you and massive courgette
11. The Only Way Out Is Through

NOTE: this is a six song download + chat, most of the tracks are set as bonus tracks to maintain a fun air of secrecy, but they will appear as if by magic once you place your order.

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining my mailing list.

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – join The Correspondent’s Club on a free or paid tier to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Surprise live album – available for one week only!

by Laura Kidd Letterbox Music News

Surprise live album for youuuuuuuuuu! Get your hands on 8 songs (7 unreleased) plus some fun chat, available on a pay what you want basis* for one week only.

Thanks to everyone who joined me live last night, I really enjoyed it.

I’ve been playing online gigs since 2013 and they’re always a little nerve-racking, especially when playing new material – but when everything comes together like it did last night it’s too exciting not to share. I’m going to continue amping up my monthly Penfriend TV shows so I’m already looking forward to July’s and planning some new segments. Hope to see you there.

If you’re a paid Correspondent, DO NOT FEEL ANY PRESSURE TO PAY! If money is tight, DO NOT FEEL ANY PRESSURE TO PAY! All contributions help keep the project afloat, so are much appreciated, but PWYW is not a trick 🙂 XOXO

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining my mailing list.

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – join The Correspondent’s Club on a free or paid tier to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Beware Of Darkness, online gig this Sat + why I’m launching a podcast

by Laura Kidd Creativity Letterbox Mindfulness Music News Podcast Process

Art by @grandfunkrev

This morning I got up early to do yoga in the living room before walking the dogs round the block in the blazing sunshine. On returning home I was overcome with wistfulness and felt compelled to put on George Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness”. By the end of the first verse I had burst into hot tears.

I don’t know what exactly prompted me to find that particular song today; I knew I needed to listen to George, and I knew I needed to head to “All Things Must Pass”, then of course “Beware Of Darkness” was just perfect. There’s something about certain pieces of music that enable a sort of metaphysical circuit closing, they act as the missing connector between the things I need to feel and the means to feel them by unabashedly sobbing into my overnight oats.

Watch out now, take care
Beware of falling swingers
Dropping all around you
The pain that often mingles
In your fingertips
Beware of darkness

Watch out now, take care
Beware of the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night

Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for

Watch out now, take care
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of Maya

Watch out now, take care
Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go
While Weeping Atlas Cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness

Reading the lyrics properly for the first time, I’m struck by how spookily appropriate they are today. Isn’t the brain an amazing thing? Thank you brain, and thank you George, for your beautiful songs.

Sitting at my desk now with the sun streaming through the attic window, birds chirping melodiously out the front of the house and perched above me on the roof, I feel lucky…but also a little lost. Life feels a lot more chaotic than it did a week ago, and I’m finding it hard not to let the UK news permeate my protective forcefield at the moment.

I’d love to hear what your go-to songs are for feeling your feelings, whether they’re happy or sad (my cheer up tune is “Sexx Laws” by Beck, btw). Let me know in the comments!

ONLINE GIG THIS SATURDAY 4pm (UK time)

The first Penfriend gig ever, hooray! This will be for members of my Correspondent’s Club (DigiPal members and upwards), streaming live from 4pm UK (GMT+1) this Saturday 30th May. If you’d like to attend, just pick your tier from the options on this page, and remember you can up- or downgrade your monthly membership at any time.

In May, eligible Correspondents received a bunch of member perks including analogue welcome packs in the post, two free studio recordings, one live recording and a members-only podcast episode plus access to our delightful forum, which has fast become my favourite place to hang out online. We already have our own weekly Spotify playlist, with members taking turns to introduce their favourite songs to the group, and I’m interested to see where this is going.

Please browse free and paid monthly/annual tiers if you’re interested, but know that it’s a privilege and a delight to send things out to you, paying guest or no. Thank you for making this connection with me.

ATTENTION ENGINEER PODCAST – SUBSCRIBE NOW

My weekly podcast series “Attention Engineer” launches next Wednesday 3rd June with a bumper crop of three episodes at once!

Visit this page to listen to the trailer and choose your preferred link to subscribe so the episodes pop up in your preferred podcast listening platform as soon as they’re published.

I should be on all the major platforms by now, but please do let me know if I’ve missed one!

If you’re new to podcasts, the main place to go is Apple Podcasts, or you can listen on my blog every week if you prefer.

WHY A PODCAST?

I’ve been on quite a journey over the past couple of years, exploring my relationship with social media. The internet has undoubtedly helped me find my people, but I needed to step back from this hyperconnected, information-saturated world to protect my own happiness, check in with myself and see if I wanted to keep making music.

The answer was YES, and that checking in process led to the idea for the Penfriend project and The Correspondent’s Club. So, how does “Attention Engineer” fit in?

My podcast is an attempt to slow down, go deeper and focus on the things that are most important to me in a thoughtful and mindful way. I’ve met so many interesting people over my music making years, and opportunities for a proper conversation are very rare, so I wanted to create this space to us all to stop for a while and reflect on why we do what we do, and what it’s all for.

My only criterion for asking someone to be a guest is a deep respect and enthusiasm for their work. I’m fascinated by the magic of the creative process, and always intrigued as to how other artists balance things like touring and home life, creative introspection and happiness.

I have the Plato quote “A life which is not examined is not worth living” scribbled on a Post-it note on my wall. As someone who embraces the positive changes that regular quiet reflection has brought to my life in the past two years, this is my contribution towards thoughtfully examining the whys and wherefores of this strange and wonderful thing that connects us all on such a deep emotional level.

BE ON THE PODCAST!

Alongside the artist to artist interviews, I’ll be shining a light on YOU – the audience. Without you we would be nothing, truly, so I’m looking for volunteers to answer questions about your musical passions. This will be in recorded audio format (not video), for inclusion in future episodes.

Please email me if you’re interested in having your voice included.

BIG LOVE, have a great week.
Laura xxxx

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining my mailing list.

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every week – join The Correspondent’s Club on a free or paid tier to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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My lockdown anthem of hope is out today

by Laura Kidd Letterbox Music News

GET THE SONG

+ Get “Everything Looks Normal In The Sunshine” plus unreleased track “The Only Way Out Is Through” FREE when you join The Correspondent’s Club.
+ Download PWYW from Bandcamp.
+ Search for “Penfriend” on your music platform of choice.

Thanks for listening! Now, read on to find out how the song came about…

The jarring image of the best looking ice cream in the world and the face mask preventing me from enjoying it is a symbol intended to reflect the bizarre times we all find ourselves in…

I looked up from my notebook impatiently, tutted, sighed and stood up, striding the two paces from my desk to the studio door to slam it shut. This wasn’t working out too well.

My jokes about noise-cancelling headphones (a luxury beyond my means) were becoming less jovial. Between the concentration-stealing mood swings of the neighbourhood toddlers and the long, loud video meetings my husband had started attending from his home office next door, I was feeling trapped…and guilty – for feeling trapped when I was in a better position than many (a house with space for two plus a small garden, a happy relationship, my health).

In the week before the UK lockdown was announced, Tim and I had already decided to stay inside and were adjusting to being around each other all day. I limped through the last few lines of my Morning Pages and picked up my guitar. I felt frustrated and a little bit sulky foot-stampy childish – why did I have to be quiet, anyway? I’m a musician FFS!

I had already picked out a sentence from my morning’s writing and scrawled it across my whiteboard in blood red pen. “Everything looks normal in the sunshine” felt like the germ of something important, and was indeed the portal to a song that assembled itself in a swift and orderly fashion on bashed acoustic guitar with time to spare for me to overhear yet more meeting afterwards. YAY.

I demoed the song the following Monday and performed it live in front of Robin Ince, Josie Long and Jo Brand two days later. I’ve been working with brilliant remote drummer Max Saidi since we were introduced by a friend last spring, so once he sent over his parts I recorded the bass, guitars, synths and vocals here in The Launchpad and sent everything off to Dan Austin to be mixed.

I decided to make the most of my ability to do whatever the fuck I like as an independent artist and change my launch plans to make room for a different debut single, and so here we are.

A song like this needs some killer artwork, and I’m so pleased to have collaborated with one of my favourite Insta artists @genskiart on this.

The jarring image of the best looking ice cream in the world and the face mask preventing me from enjoying it is a symbol intended to reflect the bizarre times we all find ourselves in – everything looks normal in the sunshine, but in our myriad ways we’re navigating a terrifying situation that throws the normal, everyday idea of a simple ice cream on a sunny day into question.

When I wrote this song, UK supermarket shelves were being emptied by panic buyers, while other people seemed very slow to take the threat seriously. When I was working on the lyrics I pondered our disconnected lifestyles, picturing a scenario where someone who hadn’t previously bothered to greet their neighbours suddenly found themselves isolated, hoping their relative privilege would protect them – “your money won’t help you now”.

The artwork poses the questions I’ve been asking myself as I navigate this strange and unsettling time – with this global pandemic as a backdrop to all of our lives, what is important? What and who do we really miss? How should / could we be spending our time, now and in the future? What do we regret? What would we change if things could go back to “normal”, and if we’re still waiting, why are we waiting to make those changes?

We’re two months into a race with no clear end in sight, and it’s hard to pace ourselves. Surviving is more important than thriving at the moment, and I am in awe of our NHS workers, keyworkers of all kinds, parents home-schooling their kids while trying to work from home and you, too. I see you. This is tough.

I’m not alone in spending some of my lockdown feeling guilty that others are out there working, putting themselves at risk. But, as a wise osteopath once said to me, “Just because some people have lost their legs doesn’t mean your broken foot doesn’t hurt, Laura”. Acknowledging that there will always be something happening that is bigger and more important than a musician releasing a song, I wanted to share this track with you now because it is my interpretation of a very particular situation, a global moment in time that I hope against hope will be something we can move beyond.

It’s not fair that workers are being pressured into returning to jobs when there’s no vaccine yet. The current message from the Government is a shambles. It’s brutally unfair that BAME people are more at risk of getting the virus, and it breaks my heart that while NHS workers die for their efforts to save us, people throw street parties and form conga lines.

It’s time for us to acknowledge our various privileges and look out for each other like never before, but it’s also perfectly acceptable to feel sad about missing the people and things we care about. We can only look forward, now, and try to hope, but it’s ok to want an ice cream on a sunny day.

Thank you for listening to my new song.
Love, Laura xxxx

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining The Correspondent’s Club (free and paid tiers available).

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – choose the Freewheeler tier or upwards to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Four Penfriend songs live on the internet – watch again links

by Laura Kidd Letterbox Music News

25/3/20 – Stay At Home Fest with Robin Ince, Josie Long, Jo Brand and Luke Wright
Starts 44:39 – I played “Out Of The Blue” + “Everything Looks Normal In The Sunshine”

4/5/20 – Stay At Home Fest with Robin Ince, Josie Long and Bruce Hood
Starts 26:57 – I played “The Only Way Out Is Through” and talked about The Correspondent’s Club.

5/5/20 – Vitriola Music with Robin Ince, Michael Legge, Robyn Hitchcock and Owen Parker
Starts 37:15 – I played “Seashaken” and talked about community and music making in a global pandemic.

Thanks so much to Robin for inviting me on all these great shows! There’s really nothing like playing a two day old song live on the internet while watching Jo Brand nodding her head along out of the corner of your eye. Phew!

Thanks to Keven Law for the photo.

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining The Correspondent’s Club (free and paid tiers available).

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – choose the Freewheeler tier or upwards to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Let me tell you a story…

by Laura Kidd Creativity Homepage Feature Letterbox Music News Process

When I was a little girl, one of my favourite possessions was a shoebox that I filled up with bits of paper, envelopes and leaflets gathered from wherever I could find them. I called it my Post Office, and every now and then I’d take the box from under the bed and pour my treasure out on the floor. I’m hazy on the details, but I remember loving to “play Post Office”, which I imagine meant sorting the assorted paper into different piles and then putting them back in the box.

Later, somehow, I ended up writing letters to children I’d never met, who lived far away – Svetlana in Belarus and Alastair in Derbyshire. It was utterly magical to send my closely written pages to people I would never talk to in person, carefully copying the unfamiliar Russian words onto Svet’s envelopes well enough for her to receive my missives.

It was to Alastair I first proudly declared my aim to be a songwriter when I grew up, having never written a single song, and knowing nothing whatsoever about how to do so. Letter writing predated those heady days when I started to discover my favourite bands by some years, but both activities were a youthful statement of independent thought at an age where actions were dictated by adults.

As I grew older I gathered more people to write to. My family moved every three years, so there were always friends left behind, and in my early teens I wrote to kids I met on school trips, boys at other schools, even friends at the same school as me. We challenged each other to fill up more and more pages and somehow still had enough left to say to talk on the phone for hours in the evening. The freedom I found to express myself in letters is one of my fondest memories of childhood.

On my journey into adulthood, switching to email and blogging and Twitter felt intuitive, but my love for words written by hand on paper never left me. As I released music over the years, getting to “play Post Office” more and more regularly, my role as the maker and sender of things became clear. Writing songs and dispatching them into the world, in whatever format, is a natural progression from the innate desire I had to connect with others from a young age.

I’m delighted to invite you to watch this short video. See you on the other side x

Photo by Carol Jeng.

THANK YOU for visiting my website!

+ Get FREE music immediately by joining The Correspondent’s Club (free and paid tiers available).

+ I send a thoughtful weekly email every Thursday – choose the Freewheeler tier or upwards to receive it.

+ New episodes of my music podcast “Attention Engineer”are released every Wednesday – visit this page to find out more and subscribe via your favourite podcast platform.

+ You can also follow me around the web, on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Have a lovely day xo

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Menu

Category: Music News

My song is in a film!

Power to the people

Exotic Monsters (22/1/21)

New Penfriend TV live album – available for one week only!

Surprise live album – available for one week only!

Beware Of Darkness, online gig this Sat + why I’m launching a podcast

My lockdown anthem of hope is out today

Four Penfriend songs live on the internet – watch again links

Let me tell you a story…

Free music for you!