Let’s talk about the cape...
I’m thinking by now, you’ve probably noticed the superhero cape I’ve been rocking lately? Many of you have even written to me about it asking what it all means! And as much as I love mystery, there’s nothing I love more than a good excuse to write to you guys... so you don’t have to ask twice.
Let’s do this!
So as you know, my first playlist ‘LOVERS’ is a story album. It’s set in the real world (all too real!) and each song is a chapter in the story of a relationship from start to finish. And while the characters in the playlist are technically fictional, the songs are all totally real to me and written 100% from my own experience. They are moments I’ve had and questions I’ve asked growing up; written in the voice of a younger me. So why the cape if it’s all so real?!? Well I’m getting to that...
See the cape was a sort of remedy to a problem I didn’t know I had until after the fact...
It was only once I’d finished the album that I finally had the chance to sit back and listen to it through, from start to finish. I poured myself a glass of something, printed off my lyrics and hit play one evening, excited to experience it. But as the music played and I heard myself for the first time (I mean really heard myself... ) I got a certain kind of sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach...
YIKES! I knew the songs were honest. These were feelings I’d had. But the picture I’d painted of myself wasn’t great. This was a weak, needy, desperate kind of girl. Someone who needed saving. Someone who felt lesser than whoever she fell for.
And I was struck by just how much I put myself down with my words. “I’m the enemy. I’m an idiot. I’m a little awkward. You be the hit cos’ I’ll miss.” and that’s just the first song!
Was that how I felt sometimes? Yes!
But is it the truth?
NO!
Being comfortable in my own skin is a fairly new phase I’m entering, but even on these shaky foundations, I knew the answer to that question. The young woman in my songs was selling herself tragically short. Because I sold myself short and always have. And perhaps we all do.
I knew I wasn’t going to change anything about the songs. I meant the words I wrote. They were honest. But being truthful isn’t my only priority and therein lay the problem.
See, I have set myself two missions for myself as an artist …
To tell our stories truthfully. To say it how it is without a filter... so that anyone listening who feels the same will know they’re not alone.
To inspire people, to elevate them, to take them somewhere magical. To give them a world to escape to...
Both are equally important to me, but they are so often at war with each other! And never more so than with this playlist.
How was I going to inspire people with this self-deprecating mess of an Emmi I’d put to song?
I wanted to share what it feels like to be in love. How it is to need somebody. I wanted to write songs I wish a younger me had been able to listen to in all those confusing, helpless moments she went through. But I also wanted to ELEVATE people. Remind us that life is more than we know, that we are more than we know…
Ultimately I realised I was going to need to find a way of inspiring myself if I had any hope of inspiring anyone else.
I spent months trying to find the answer (Cue: umpteen failed photo shoots, and rejected mood boards and treatments). Then one weekend, I happened upon a notebook that would change everything. There, on one of the pages, was a little sketch I’d done the day I wrote Moments over a year ago. And it was like one of those pantomime Aha! moments…
“You had the answer all the time!”
“That’s it! She’s a drunk super hero that thinks she needs saving… but like hell she does! “
It seemed so simple and almost too on the nose to be the answer. But I sent it to my team and they concurred with that butterfly feeling in my stomach... “That’s got it!” The lyrics could stay exactly as they were. But there was another truth to be told here ... and I was going to have to tell it visually.
See the girl I was may have felt less than enough. She may have wanted to be saved. But she didn’t need to be! And she doesn’t now. This is something I’m learning now but am still training my heart to believe. And it occurs to me that we all are, (yes you!) so much more than the dialogue in our heads would have us feel sometimes. More brilliant. More beautiful. More strange. More fabulous. More powerful. MORE HERO. And sometimes we just can’t see the capes on our backs. We wear our worth behind us. Bold and beautiful and perhaps only visible to those that truly love us. (Or to us if we take a moment to look back every now and then and see how far we’ve come…)
Disclaimer: I am fully aware that the cape is RIDICULOUS. It’s a child’s costume for crying out loud! And believe me no one is more weirded out by this new fashion choice than me! Being half Aussie- half British, self deprecation is in my blood… so I try to avoid any form of self-celebration at all costs. But I love it when anyone else celebrates themselves!
(Yes YOU DJ KHALLLEEDDD. Never change!)
And that’s just it! It’s only me I keep in a false cage! Because the truth is I love to celebrate the people I love. And I love to celebrate you guys! And I want to inspire you guys to celebrate yourselves. And I realised I had no hope of doing that unless I was first willing to celebrate myself. So I decided to stop taking myself so damn seriously and start having some fun. Get some joy in my soul and embrace the powerful sentiment of the phrase ‘Fuck it’! And so the cape is here and here to stay...
I can still act a twat in it. My posture is still rubbish. I’m still a square making pop music and I still dance like your drunk dad at a wedding. But if this album is anything to go by... I needed reminding I’m more than that. And more than anything I wanted to remind you that you are too.
I hope you love the songs that are coming. I can’t wait to share them with you. And I hope you laugh with me as I prance about in my cape around London town. And I hope you grab a bed sheet or a cape of your own, and tie it on, and look in the mirror and puff your chest out a little, and smile, and maybe dance or do something that scares you in it. Fuck it!
Because life is too short to concentrate on how small you are. Yes you suck. So do I. But you’re also brilliant! And so am I. You are alive, right now, and younger today than you’ll ever be... and you are LOVED and capable of love. Love is your greatest human super power. So go spread it. Live your best cape life!
Lots of love,
Em x
