If you have ever seen me play live, you’ll know that I normally provide a lengthy discourse around each song before I even play the first chord. But I never really go into detail about ‘After You’ (the one that came out today!). I think often about how people interpret music and lyrics so differently, cherry-picking the parts that soothe or ignite an often buried or unsaid feeling. When I resonate with a song of which I don’t know the origin story of it calls in to question whether my predisposition to overt explanation denies my listeners the freedom to find their own narrative in my music. The universality of human emotion, that 10 people will take 10 different things away from a song, is the great magic of music and art so perhaps my forensic approach narrows the breadth of meaning. Like an overanalysed GCSE-mandated poem. So I’ve been on the fence about dishing out the hot goss.
There is another factor at play with ‘After You’. Put simply, it’s about losing someone that you love but I wrote this song after a particularly painful break up (I’ve immediately broken the facade). A complicated one that resulted in the loss of a very dear friend. At the time I was disorientated by the depth of loss and affliction from the breakdown of a short affair. Upon picking up my guitar (like any self-respecting, overly emotional songwriter does at a time like this), I distinctly recall feeling frustrated that the lyrics mumbling out of me were still ones of lament for this situation, revealing to me (in the deeply irritating way that songwriting does) that I had not or could not move on. It’s both disturbing and oddly spiritual to feel moved by your own music but sometimes (very rarely) you write something that encapsulates exactly how you feel.
It took until the next year when I was recording it in the heat of British Summer to realise that this was a song about grief. I had been grieving. Not the disseverance of a short relationship or the lost chance of love but the specific presence of the person who couldn’t be in my life anymore. It got me thinking about grief, how we reserve it only for death, feeling too melodramatic and privileged to admit to grieving a person who is still out there in the world, living, breathing and loving. It could always be worse, right?
When I play ‘After You’ at gigs, people often tell me that it has helped them with their own grief for those who have died. I worry that in explaining that the person I lost is still alive, I at risk of decoupling their grief from this song whilst invalidating mine, confining it to the dusty mantel of break up songs that is not relevant or helpful to them. But songs belong to the listener as much as to the writer. Sometimes they are therapists, sometimes premonitions but they always reveal new layers as they age (like good cheese) and are shared around (also like cheese). Through this song I have learned that grief comes in many forms, in the breakdowns of friendships, relationships, rights, visions of what could have been. It reminds me to relent to the swarming weight knowing that acceptance eventually supersedes it.
Ultimately, perhaps it doesn’t warrant a lengthy introduction because grief is entrenched and universal. It’s depth is sometimes inexplicable (though we all try to put our finger on it) and, in the end, insists on being felt not explained.
For a long time I had it saved as ‘sad song’ on my Google Drive. The name ‘After You’ came to be when I held a door for someone: “After you!!”. In that there is some specificity. I held onto this person too long, trying to stifle the grief, only giving into it’s clutches once they had walked away. I couldn’t jump first. I couldn’t let go. And it only dug me deeper into the ditch of loss and denial.
I hope I haven’t over-explained (again) and that this song allows you to feel your own grief so that one day it becomes manageable. I also hope it makes you think of the ones you love, whether they are still beside you or not. People always say love is the opposite of grief, or the trade-off at least (like wine and headaches). Maybe that’s a cheap line to make us feel better but it’s a helpful one. Thank you for being here, for listening and sharing. I never thought I’d say this but it is a great honour (though very wobbly) to share these big feelings with friends and perfect strangers on the internet.
Meet you on the stage
11th November - Leeds @ Brudenell Social Club* (Free Show)
12th November - London @ Servant Jazz Quarters* (LOW TICKETS)
*Full Band Show
Meet you on the radio
Two Halves - Marta Del Grandi
Sink Into It - Marnie Glum
Soft Currents - Alexandra Savior
Listen to my weekly playlist here!
Grief for a living person, and the life you thought was yours to share with that person, is implicitly and indefinitely unresolved. Especially in these public days, where it is always possible to find and see that person living their life.
I hear you x
This one has always helped me with my big grief ❤️