Bodies in the basement

(it's not what it sounds like.)

It was 2020 and we’d all been isolating, masking, living life at home and distancing from most of the people we knew and loved. Birthday parties, senior trips, family vacations, weddings, funerals, and everything in between had been siloed and put up on the shelf for another time—maybe? I remember conversations with friends where we postulated about whether this “new normal” would last for a year or a decade of our lives, or forever. It was into that deep discomfort of unknowing, of all that wistful sitting by windows, of remembering what it felt like to laugh with friends in the glow of patio lights, of daydreaming about airplanes and European side streets and romance and candlelit restaurants—it was into that jostle of feelings and uncertainty that “Bodies” (by Muna/The Knocks) crashed into my life like a bird into a glass door. I don’t remember where I was, but I remember how it felt. It’s a dance song about a house party, I think, but I remember crying hot tears listening to it, remembering what it felt like to dance in a house full of people. I found myself wondering what they felt releasing that song in a summer where most people around the world weren’t dancing together anymore; I don’t know the story, though I imagine there may have been some feelings about it, but I do know that a song about dancing at a house party broke something in me; I’d been fighting so hard to maintain a stiff upper lip about it all, and all it took to shatter my veneer of stout and wind-bit northeastern ‘it’ll be fine’ stoicism was a song that said this:

“It’s another suburban summer; the street lights blink on. If you’re passing the house on the corner, you’d think no one’s home. But when I feel the resonation waving with the weight from bodies in the basement, when you swing my way, won’t wait—no way, no way, want bodies in the basement.”

It was like suddenly I remembered all the things I was trying desperately to forget in order to save myself the pain of grieving life before…gestures vaguely…All This.

Morgan Harper Nichols posted the above on IG (click the pic to visit) and it helped me realize something; for just about a year beginning with the summer of 2020 I listened to Bodies almost every day, often while I shed a tear or a thousand. I don’t know the story of how the song was written and released, like I said, but I don’t think it was originally intended to be listened to in headphones on a couch by a sniffling and weeping person. It talks about 808s and sweaty bodies and omg how did I get here on this couch crying listening to this effervescent piece of pop music? Well, Morgan’s postulation above really hit me and I thought—OH. Bodies was helping me grieve. An unlikely grief anthem…or is it? Not if Morgan’s idea is true. In that case ANYTHING can be a soundtrack to grief, or disappointment, or change, or growing up.

As I consider this today I feel weirdly and deeply comforted because I myself have been working through a few years of fear and hesitation about my future in music. For over a decade I knew the rules. Sing to God, sing about God, write about these things, don’t go over here or there or there either. It made it really simple to write music. I didn’t really have to reinvent myself as an artist until after The Big Change. It’s been an intensely financially stressful few years since 2020 began, and since then I’ve often felt stuck in the mud and mire of fearfulness—I’ve felt deep, paralyzing fear of what people will make of the songs I’m writing now, fear that no one will ever want to come hear me sing them, fear that I spent all my “best” creativity on a career that might actually be over. Of course I know that all of that is useless thinking on one level, but here is how I currently understand the nervous system to work; it brings up feelings and beliefs we need to process or evolve, and it will keep doing it (sometimes through disease, disorders, and depression or despair) until we say yes. I already felt these things on some level; it just took The Big Change to bring them up to my awareness. Thank you, life, for being such a damn squeeze sometimes. It really keeps me honest.

So what the hell, right? If a pop song about a house party full of sweaty bodies can help me grieve, then maybe my new songs can be helpful and medicinal to people and meet them where they are, no matter what they’re about.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still writing about some of the same stuff and I don’t think that what I’m working on will be wholly unfamiliar; but as I’ve worked and worked and WORKED this past couple of years to carve out an evolved sound, an evolved artistic identity, and an evolved set of desires and goals for my work, I have traversed some new terrain and tried some new musical things and written about some new topics. It’s felt really scary to me as an artist coming out of a system where approval and interest really did sort of hinge on the subject matter. Out here, in the other parts of the world, it’s a little different. I’m getting brave, though. Because what other choice do I have? It’s that, or stop singing. And I will never do that as long as I have a voice.

It’s a ‘new year’ (though I know some people disagree with the practice of setting resolutions at this time at the western calendar) and like it or not, the collective energy of everybody’s efforts to reset and improve feels like a portal of sorts; a doorway to feeling some freshness and newness opens for many of us around this time of year and I am no exception. I don’t really make resolutions anymore, but here is list of all I would love to feel more and less of for 2023:

More:

Unedited creative expression

Movement

Strength

Agility

Water

Laughter

Self compassion

Meditation

Courage

Can-do attitude

Learning

Skills

Yes, and.

Less:

Fearfulness

Self doubt

Self loathing

Paralysis

Stagnation

Timidity

Overanalysis

Overthinking

‘No’ as a knee-jerk response.

Drop your ins and outs in the comments if you feel like it :) I always like reading other peoples’ lists.

Starting Jan 13 (so soon!) I will be releasing 4 Coldplay covers I made with Moda Spira and then in March or April I’ll be releasing the NEW original stuff I’ve been working so hard on for the last couple of years. I cannot wait. TRULY. It is getting tormenting for me, but there’s only a few months left before these songs start coming out, and I *guess* I can wait. love y’all. Happy happy new year, wherever you’re at. If you’re feeling a hot mess lately like I’ve been, well…solidarity. One foot in front of the other. Finish the apple one bite at a time. Sending you love and peace, wherever and however you are.

Audrey