Wednesday 11th Octobre, 2023

Something has occurred in my thinking…

Of the songs I’m writing, of the images I’m making, of the person I’m being… there’s an abyss of meaning. A lot of what’s bouncing around my head lately is a look into the subconscious… & what a subconscious actually is. To explain where I’m at with my subconscious, it’d make a lot of sense to go back in time.

When I was about 21… I was acting, performing my first few songs, & still trying to come to terms with a career ending injury in my back. My personal life was a bit messy & I didn’t realise that I was struggling. Who I was, was ill defined & fragile… so the last thing I needed, was Clown work. For a bit of context to the un-Clowned people, a lot of Clown work involves improvisational character work. Basically, letting whatever is in your subconscious out & wearing it in your body for everyone to watch… with a goal to be engaging & entertaining through emotional honesty. That’s a bit of a janky definition… but it’ll get the important part across. Young Nathan’s ego, was in no place to be stretched & challenged. As such, I was deeply insecure about myself, & my ability to perform for others. So all of my Clown work was distorted by a layer of “I don’t wanna look stupid”, & “I want them to like me.” This meant I thought a lot about how to make people laugh, & how to look cool & talented… which from the outside in, was a transparent & insecure young man. (written with full sympathy for little me of course… it’s not easy to do at the best of times.)

& that’s when we get to the ‘best of times’. Or what we might call instead: today.

These days, I’ve been taking to Clowning in a big way. No judgement. An instinctual ear. Fully committing to whatever is coming out of my deepest parts, & not worrying about getting anything wrong. Being 10 years older really does give you a confidence to assume your space in the world. When it comes to my music, I’ve been developing away from the ‘public’ eyes that involve social media & live audiences. The freedom I’ve had to explore what’s in my subconscious, & how I’m trying to pull that out to shape for you in the future, has been liberating. There are some deep decisions being made in me somewhere & they’re starting to form a coherent, or several coherent ideas.

1. The power & impact of touch

I’m a physical guy. Coming from the Circus world, from the Theatre world, & from a once ‘huggy’ family, I’ve developed a taste & a hunger for touch. When times are tough, I definitely crave it… so much so that it appears in all of my music. It always had. I don’t view touch as a negative thing fortunately, & I’m confident in my assertion that the world needs more touch. What I’m doing lyrically is inserting a ‘touch’ vernacular. It’s even in the working title of the next album : a Touch of Pink.

2. My Sexuality

This is an odd one… not in that I am an inherently sexual thing, but that it’s becoming a part of my ‘public’ work. For my whole creative life I’ve wanted to involve it, but it felt weird. My dad might hear these songs… my Sisters could end up singing them! So I’ve kept a lot of that part of me subdued & private. But again… age comes along & liberates. At this stage we’re all old enough to be comfortable with sexuality. So I’ve been teasing it out in my songs, & leaning into it more. I mean… Pink is a particularly sexual colour… right?

3. Memory & the Mind

There’s a few songs involving a loss of memory, or a loss of my mind. I know that in my future I have a hereditary predisposition towards dementia… but even today I suffer from an intense ability to forget. Sure, I lose names almost instantly… but I also forget talking to people, I forget pretty much anything I try to hold in my head. (hence my compulsion to write everything down) So some of the songs are about forgetting people, myself, etc… & not always in a bad way. One of my favourite current lyrics is “You’re the stranger that I want in bed beside me, & your forgetful face is one I’ll keep on finding.” It’s from a song about two lovers forgetting one another only to repeatedly rediscover their love… & how they come to enjoy that.

4. The Spirit, the Arcane, the Celestial

Something that keeps appearing in both the lyrics & images is my relation to the crescent moon… & the metaphorical significance of ‘becoming’ something. I’m not much in the way of a cultist, or an alchemist, etc… but a lot of these images & themes have been adjacent to me since before I was born. (Mum’s a witch) So, with my research into the subconscious… I’ve been exploring & accepting these images more & more apparently. Lots of star chasing & moon gazing, etc…

I’ll keep the list limited there. We can analyse until the cows come home… but right now these seem to be what’s coming out of me, from somewhere. I’m trying to avoid other people’s opinions, to keep these songs & images close to my chest… but I’ve had a compulsion to ‘show’ since I was a tiny tiny tiny baby. Since I was singing into shopping market mirrors, & telling my dream-stories to people on the way to school. So I’ve been TRYING to keep as much as I can, close to me.

So when I work on Clowning now, when I have to contend with my ego, & when I deal with the subconscious decisions that are being made… I’m quite open & receptive. Since I turned 30, I just shed each & every fuck I gave about how the world needs to see me. Right now I’m just concerned with putting my honest self into what I make & do… & giving it to the people who resonate with that. The rest of everything will follow.

Until next week,

Nathan