Elke caught up with Clare Bowditch last week to talk about her new album The Winter I Chose Happiness, knitting and cultivating creativity.
Your album focuses on happiness, which is actually quite a taboo subject, so where do you begin with something like that?
Yeah, so you begin with, first, a sense of terror, really. As an artist, the theme of happiness appeared really clearly in my life as the thing that I wanted to write this album about. It took a little getting used to, I wondered if I could do it with integrity, I wondered if there was a way to tell those stories that didn’t deny suffering. The first song of the album popped up when I was co-writing with Wally (Gotye) we were sitting next to eachother and we had been having a conversation, I sang ‘Are You Ready Yet’ he said ‘To Be Happy’ and then from there went.
I really like that, I think it’s incredibly brave, people are so quick to cut down anything that’s wholly positive, but reading through the lyrics on the album, it feels like it really was addressed with a lot of integrity.
Well previous themes of my albums were grief and suffering, lust and addiction, so my feeling is that anyone that came to my work would know I was trying to deal with it in a way that would have some truth in it. I so know that fear we have that if we speak from the heart we’ll be discredited, but I think you can do both, speaking with integrity as well as coming from the heart.
The name of your album is quite appropriate I feel, I mean every winter I just want to hibernate, it’s seems to be when everything is at it’s heaviest point.
Yeah it can be quite depressing! When I was 19 I started writing a song called ‘Amazing Life’ which is on this album. I only finished it a few months ago because I hadn’t figured out how to finish it until now. I think we underestimate the enormity of change that young people go through, I had the most challenging years through my early twenties, I was always hoping I would just make it to 40. I think there’s something precious that does come with age. And I think if you’re that type of person that does feel that strongly in winter you have to maintain the right to do really daggy things like knitting and writing letters, cups of tea...
Ha that’s so true! Last winter I started cross stitching swear words in pretty fonts to put all over my apartment… You do start doing weird things.
Haha, yeah you got to get a bit experimental. Yeah life is suffering and you cannot deny that, I think part of the role of art is to help us alchemise that suffering and turn into something new. I used to think it was the other way around that you had to suffer in order to create, but now I realise all you have to do is to be real, and part of that might be suffering but part of that might me deep joy as well, there are all different wells we can draw from. Sometimes creation is about complexity and that means accepting our nature as well as, hope for the future.
Speaking of the future, next year you’re launching a creative business mentorship next year, that’s really cool, have you had a mentor?
I have had many many incredible mentors, many artists I have admired I have been able to sit under their wings and learn from them for a while, like Leonard Cohen. I have also had incredible female mentors in my life. I really believe in the concept of communities allowing their wisdom to come through.
Thanks Clare!
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