I haven’t written this kind of article in a long time. In recent weeks, for reasons we’ll get to, I have been reflecting on how becoming a father changed my relationship with music and how that has bled into changes in how I write about music, too. When this website started you couldn’t move for the articles I was writing about how music helps my mental health, how being at a gig makes me feel part of a community, or how albums such as Kae Tempest’s Let Them Eat Chaos or Jamie T’s Panic Prevention have played a crucial role in certain periods of my life. But since my daughter was born in the middle of 2021, my music writing has become much less self-reflective and much more focused on the content of whatever I am writing about. I am less likely to give you six thousand words on how Nadine Shah’s music makes me feel seen, and much more likely to give you a top ten list of her songs. I can imagine many of you think that sounds like a good thing.
But for me, it’s become clear that this is a sign of a few things. One of those things is obvious – I now have a child and, therefore, have a lot less time to sit thinking about anything that doesn’t involve nappies, fromage frais, Peppa Pig, and nursery fees. Without that time to think, I don’t as easily spot the threads that used to lead me to write in that way. But it’s more than that. I also now get much less opportunity to think about myself full stop, or to spot when an album or gig is having a particular effect on me, or when I might need to take some time to allow music to work its magic and sooth my creaking mind. And, of course, my listening to music is now much more interrupted – by a child screaming at me and telling me to dance, by a tantrum, by an insistence that I turn the song I’m listening to off and put that famous pig back on the television.
For someone whose entire personality has been built around their music obsession, this comes with challenges. While I used to go to five or six gigs a month, I now probably only manage twice that amount in a year (at best). Where I used to spend every waking moment with a record spinning on my timetable, I now can’t actually remember the last time I pressed that little play button – it isn’t worth the risk of her taking the record and using it as a frisbee or dancing so vigorously that the record skips and scratches. These are minor nuisances, of course – and she more than makes up for them with the simple things she does each day, or, to keep it music related, when she turns to me out of nowhere at the breakfast table and says ‘Daddy, put David Bowie on.’ Those moments definitely make me less upset about the time I had to cancel going to see an Anna B Savage gig because she wouldn’t go to sleep, or the fact that I can no longer keep on top of the list of new releases in the same way that I used to.
But why am I writing about this now? Well, in the last month or two I have had reason to need some of what I used to get from music and, through that process, it has led to me really noticing the way that music has helped me once more. Without going into too many details, it has been one of those periods of life when the challenges have been mounting – losses and illnesses, reminders of life’s fragility, and the additional challenge of a trying to cope with all of that while looking after a child who doesn’t like to sleep. It’s been a bit of a shitshow. I’ve been forced, in ways that I had long forgotten, to take a look at myself and think hard about what I need to help get me through. And, of course, the thing that has been most notable is music. It isn’t that I went looking for it, though – but more that music, in a couple of guises, came into my life at the right time and helped me to manage some complicated feelings.
There are two particular instances I want to talk about it in a little more detail. For those who know me well, there will be little surprise when I say that one of those instances relates to The National. They released Laugh Track on 18th September and it may be the first time since my daughter was born that I have demonstrated the old obsessive tendencies, the habit I used to have of playing a new release almost exclusively, ignoring other music that I had been meaning to get to. There’s been something in the familiarity of this band, the way they have soothed me many times over the years, that has meant this album has come at the perfect time. I have listened to at work, while cooking, on walks, on the train, on the way back from a funeral, while trying to go to sleep, and each time it has made me feel a sense of calm and hope.
But at the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s Benefits. The whole of the one-day Sheffield festival Float Along was a welcome balm for me, a day of great music at a time of struggle was the perfect and much-needed distraction. But while watching the pure, righteous anger of the Teeside based collective I felt an emotional release that music hasn’t given me in a very long time. It would be hard not to. These are powerful, political songs about the sorry state of our country – and there can be no doubt that this sorry state of affairs, the cost-of-living crisis and all that surrounds it, have played a role in my recent mood. So to watch someone else scream their way through these songs, and to hear a whole room scream back at them, was the cathartic clear out I needed. I can’t thank the band enough.
To get back to where I started this article, though, perhaps the most encouraging thing (for me, anyway) is that the first thing I wanted to do when making these connections in my head was to write about them. Writing has long been another coping mechanism, and another I have struggled to get to since fatherhood. Maybe the last few weeks has given me the kick start I needed, the reminder of what music and writing can offer – and maybe that means you lucky souls are gonna get more of this, more of me moaning and less of me writing lists. I bet you’re so pleased.
Words by Fran Slater
Picky Bastards 