Me and Charlotte Hatherley

I've had a bloody busy summer, as is amply evidenced by the glaring lack of posts here. At times I would have what seemed like a worthwhile idea, then either change my mind or forget what I was thinking of blogging. After the intensity of my Master's dissertation, which I submitted in late August, I kept myself busy with a plentiful supply of temporary work right up until the 25th of September. Since then, due to our lack of a kitchen and my desperate need for a break from EVERYTHING, I put job-hunting on the back-burner for a little while to rest and (this second part was not intentional, but I've found myself having little choice in the matter) face up to various personal issues that the imminent onset of Full-On Adulthood has re-woken. My deep rooted sense of insecurity and absolute worthlessness has re-emerged with a vengeance in the last few days, likely due to several factors (facing the void of the future, not getting a job I was led to believe I had a really good chance of getting, no temporary jobs and the lack of kitchen, which looks set to extend beyond the initial week to two whole weeks). Some of my closest friends have also had major emotional dramas of their own to contend with recently, which isn't particularly good; the impact of such things always reverberates across all of a person's relationships to some extent.

To summarise: EMO! I am more than a wee touch emo at the moment. As I have come to realise though, emo cannot be resolved, only managed. So how the hell to do that? What could I use to leach the figurative impurities from my system? Music was an obvious, but welcome, possibility. Yet there's something about music which many have remarked before - it really escapes our control and might not have the effect it's supposed to have, or that you want. For example, as a teenager, I was always under the impression that listening to critically-acclaimed, stereotypically-angsty music such as Radiohead, or the Smiths, or the Cure or whatever else, whilst upset, was some kind of a therapeutic process. The music would draw out one's emotions in a manner both healing and culturally elegant, surely? The fact that my ex-boyfriend really went in for critically-acclaimed music (of the above list, Radiohead in particular), made me certain that the use of miserabilist music to treat sadness was an experience that I absolutely had to try at some point.

Unfortunately, as my ex went through his lengthy periods of misery, gorging himself on Ryan Adams in particular, my theory fell apart. From what I could see, the music provided him with a sort of reflection of his depression to wallow in. There was nothing therapeutic about the experience of listening to it - and indeed, I began to wonder what listening to a record apparently rejected as 'too depressing' by Adams's record company was doing to my then-boyfriend. Was it a way of validating his unhappiness, measuring it against a greater one (apparently Adams's girlfriend had died of cancer)? Or was it only making things worse, making him feel like his wasn't a real sadness, against the artist's? Whatever the point, it was a self-indulgent experience which didn't really help my ex to overcome his issues. Being young and foolish, I was the lifebuoy, pouring all my energies into keeping him 'on the surface' as it were. I tried the misery-music route, and it only made me feel frustrated and irritated.

Just yesterday, sadness and music and how they fit together came up with a male friend who is sometimes prone to serious depression and had been feeling quasi-suicidal. Like my ex, this friend likes to wallow in what I see as depressing music rather a lot. He used to be obsessed with Elliott Smith - who committed suicide. Currently, he loves Sparklehorse - whose singer, Mark Linkous survived an OD in 1996 (while on tour with Radiohead!) only to commit suicide earlier this year. I'm sure that some of my statements so far will have got some bristling, but I'm no musical authoritarian - I never stopped my ex listening to whatever, nor my friend, and I'm perfectly aware of the incredible power of sad music. What really intrigued me was why the use of it to manage my sadness doesn't work for me - I've tried it a few times, but it just makes me feel sort of blank. Part of the answer may lie in my pragmatism - writing this has made me realise that my notion of music as a 'cure' may seem almost clinical, compared to the romantic tendencies of some. However, I realised that there may also be a gender element to things.

Now, this will involve some avowed generalisations, but nonetheless - I've noticed that a lot of miserabilist music, and the majority of its consumers, is overwhelmingly male (and white). Think about it - all the bands/artists I mentioned above, for example, are male (and white). As I considered it further, I realised that works by these and related artists have also been established as 'authentic' emotion by mostly-male, mostly-white critics. Yet none of them did anything for me when I was sad. I would often turn to Hindi music, largely sung by women; sometimes I turn to Bat For Lashes, KT Tunstall, Etta James - it varies greatly. One artist has become my go-to: Charlotte Hatherley. The release of her second album was a pleasant shock to my system, compared to her more teenage, straightforwardly pop debut. The third album, wildly inventive, and retaining much of the emotional feel of the second album, has become an obsessive favourite. In short, it seems that feminism was at work in my mind without my even realising.

How so? Well, the fact is that pretty much all the bands that I've listed, and so many others, being male and white, project an image of sadness that is actually quite unique. This isn't any sadness, this is privileged sadness. This is sadness as coming from a person who is nonetheless lucky enough to have the time/money/support to express that sadness in recorded form, and have it given out to effectively the whole world, whether for love or money. It's 'real' sadness, 'noble' sadness, the mythical sadness of the tortured artist that everyone loves to look for and believe in, especially critics. The predecessors of these men in history were also, as far as we can see, white and male (consider that the modern-day 'tortured music artist' stereotype has been lifted from the 'tortured poet/artist' one) and therefore it is almost as if there is an expectation, a God-given right that they should be whiny or mopey over the length of a whole record (or several) and praised for it, to boot. Perhaps because it's seen as relatively abnormal for men to express emotion in our culture, when they do it in record form, other men are all over it like a rash because it's a 'safe' way for them to express their own feelings, as if by proxy. The whole 'tortured sadness' thing is also (mistakenly, in my view) associated with gravitas, creating the impression that there is something honourable about men feeling sorry for themselves, which is of course great for getting the ladies... Being overwhelmingly white and male, many critics can relate to such expressions of sadness more than I can, and thus trumpet such work as important, whilst unwittingly exposing the artificiality or 'temperedness' of it by highlighting the carefully-worked, re-edited and intricate musicianship of it.

While I don't doubt that the emotions inspiring the work are genuine (especially in the case of those who committed suicide), the fact is that it doesn't chime with my experience. As an Asian woman, the world doesn't have much time for my grief. Within Indian culture, persistent ignorance about mental illness means that depression is something that is often seen as just temporary, or even laziness, and the individual is supposed to 'get over it' without expecting too much sympathy or help from relatives. As a woman, open expression of sadness is not sexy and can lead to being viewed as tragic; there is also the fear of confirming the long-standing association of women and mental illness. Perhaps part of the reason why male brooding is so praised is precisely because, deep down, men aren't really expected to be mentally ill and/or expressive, and so when they are, it comes across as somehow revolutionary. Whereas women expressing grief is almost pedestrian; hell, the media will even play up apparent mental illness as if female grief on its own isn't enough: think of Amy Winehouse, for example, or Britney Spears. Besides all this, there is the fear of reinforcing racial stereotypes of Asian women as downtrodden, abused victims - Cinderella-types. When I am upset, I know that generally only my non-white friends will really be able to understand certain things, and even if I blog my feelings or write a poem, it's not going to receive critical appreciation and be held up as The Authentic Expression of Heartbreak, or whatever (not that I want that).

As an Asian woman, I am expected to be at the disposal of family members and doing the household chores all the time; as a partner and friend, I am often relied upon whilst knowing that I cannot similarly rely on others - or at least, not as regularly. The simple inconvenience of two people having massive issues at the same time aside, I've found that often if you're in a 'senior' position to others emotionally - giving them advice and holding them together in tough times - it's often too much of a shock for them when you fall apart, for them to really help you. Almost like seeing your dad cry, or something. In our success- and work-obsessed culture, depression is an inconvenience. Therefore, I don't have the luxury of working my grief into a potentially best-selling record - I have to find a way to manage it quick whenever it pops up again, whether it's by running from it, purging myself or even a mixture of both. I find that Radiohead, etc., don't really do sadness justice. It was funny, because my male friend defended his love of downbeat music by saying that he finds sadness to be the most beautiful and complex of emotions. You wouldn't know that from a lot of acclaimed white male artists, though. They often cover subjects that women and non-white men cover too - whether in pop, hip-hop or other musical forms - such as failed relationships, existential angst and bereavement. They just do it less directly, and with more artistry and elaboration. Considering something from a distance does not necessarily render it automatically more complex.

Which brings me back to Charlotte Hatherley. Describing her music to my friend, I explained that, even though she doesn't try to churn out indie-band pointed witticisms, or create complicated narratives or 'concept' albums, there is an overriding, unmistakable mood to her last two albums which utterly envelops me (I'm going to go on to mention tracks mostly from her second and current albums, The Deep Blue and New Worlds). She is white, and yes, hers is guitar music, but otherwise I feel like she doesn't kowtow to racially-influenced expectations of music (i.e. 'urban' music must always be by black people, whilst everything guitar-based is for white people). I mean, how many white female solo artists do you know whose key instrument is a guitar?! Pitchfork, in the first review really worthy of her work that I've ever seen, called her 'refreshingly out of step with most of her contemporaries.' Discussing her current album, New Worlds, the reviewer perceptively observes:

Hatherley is [...] a deceptively clever guitarist [...] Rather than attempt to evoke a state of synesthesia in the listener, Hatherley articulates a synesthetic point of view in her lyrics. The tell-don't-show approach is typically a misstep, but it makes perfect sense here, as the album's most thrilling bits come when she's excitedly explaining sensations and epiphanies that don't fully translate outside the boundaries of her imaginative mind. The point is not to totally grasp her crackpot color-coded cosmology, but instead to relate to the feeling of rediscovering the world and opening up to new possibilities.

The primary tension, both musically and lyrically, on New Worlds is between disciplined focus and wild hair intuition. It's not a binary opposition, though, but instead a cycle that enables an artist to effectively communicate their ideas.

The first thing to note about Charlotte Hatherley is that compared to, say, Radiohead, her music is distinctly poppy. This, I suspect, is partly why she's not taken as seriously as male artists of similar talent; her songs are infectious and you often enjoy them on first listen. You don't have to give her albums several spins before having an epiphany; the music approaches you on friendly terms. Secondly, her lyrics don't, as I said, tell fancy stories or try to reinvent the love-song wheel. On the single I Want You To Know, she sings: 'Oh baby, are you sad and lonely? Well, I'm just doing fine/I want you to know.' The shudders that such a line sends down assorted music snobs' backs! Yet - and this is the principal reason I love her - there is more to her than meets the ear. The term 'deceptively clever', as employed above, is spot on. Listening to songs such as Love's Young Dream again, you notice new sounds that didn't emerge before (such as the man's whisper in the chorus, slightly unnerving); the true complexity of the music starts to become more apparent. There is a remarkable consistency of quality on the albums which means that once you exhaust the pleasure of listening to each as a whole, individual songs start to assert themselves further. And that's another reason why I love her; unlike massively-hyped bands such as, say, the XX, she doesn't do hit and miss. There's generally only one or two 'dud' tracks at most, and even then, they're not necessarily even duds but just ones that might not fit your mood at a particular time. I don't find myself bored with her. I often skip 'Siberia,' for example, but there's no denying that it's a good song.

On to the main reason why I love her so fricking much, though: she does sadness justice. If male artists make sadness boring, one-dimensional and self-indulgent, she brings it to life. Sadness in her music is multifaceted. She expresses certain elements of sadness - nostalgia, wistfulness and fear - which seem to me to be under-explored by a lot of straightforwardly miserable music and does so with subtlety that makes it feel stunningly genuine. Crucial to this is the interplay of lyrics and music - my harping on about her obviously can't do that justice. On Dawn Treader, for example, she juxtaposes fear about the future with grief for her lost childhood; the song expresses her fears about her relationship, but this is done with reference to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third novel in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series:

(First verse)
In the night, I dream that it's over
On thin ice and tipping the balance, oh no...
Oh, not again...

From afar, the Dawn Treader has come
Here to save us, all into the shredder...
Oh, once again...

(Chorus)
Our one and only life
Put underneath the knife
Oh, what will happen to
The me and you I love?

One of the most painful and traumatic experiences of our lives is saying goodbye to childhood and forcing ourselves to grow up. This is pretty neatly demonstrated by much of the reaction (critical and public) to Toy Story 3. The past often hurts, and Charlotte Hatherley acknowledges this repeatedly in her work. She - and we think - that the Dawn Treader will come and save us, like the heroic fantasies of our childhood. However, in a Freudian twist, it is the familiar become unfamiliar - actually a 'bad ship' and a harbinger of doom. This revives the pain of lost childhood; as adults, no fantasy figures are going to come and rescue us, yet we often don't feel much more in control than we did as children. The song thus subtly but effectively communicates those pre-emptive feelings of terrible fear and loss we get when we don't know where a relationship is going, but suspect it might end badly.

Yet acknowledging the pain of the loss of childhood does not necessarily mean that CH wallows in sentimentality. In Love's Young Dream, she asks her mother frankly about the relationship between her parents before she was born:

(First verse)
When you were younger
Precious lover
What did he look like
Was he as beautiful as you?
How did it feel when you were together?
Did you surrender?
I can't imagine it at all -

And oh I wonder how you were

And I really wanna know about your love
Your love
Do you remember?

(Chorus)
(Love's young dream)
Back when you were -
When you really were -
Do you remember?
(Love's young dream)
Back when you were -
When you really were -

Can you understand?

(Second verse)
I don't remember a single moment
When you were happy
I can't remember it all (don't remember it at all)...
You only told me how it unfolded
All of the stories, oh many, many many, I know -

Oh, but what I really wanna know about is your love
Your love
Do you remember?

etc.


This song gets me excited as I've realised that it is actually quite feminist - instead of trying to whitewash her parents' relationship for the sake of her own peace of mind, Hatherley tries to engage with and imagine her mother beyond her role as her mother, as a person in her own right.


I've just realised that the sense of loss in her songs is often extremely apparent, which is why I find them so visceral. Wrong Notes, the final track of New Worlds, is in some ways similar to Dawn Treader in linking the loss of the past with the uncertainty of the future. I think it is about her desire to be loved for who she is, 'warts and all' and simultaneously, her acceptance of herself as a flawed and full being:

(First verse):
Running hands over keys
Up and down all the strings
Give me immediate
Sensations, waking everything -

Run your hands over me
Up and down all the strings
Give me immediate
Sensations, waking everything -

(Chorus)
But not so nice, not so nice now -
The wrong notes, are all right
And part of me, part of me, yeah
Will you stay by my side,
By my side?

I cried to this song without fully understanding why. The distinct mix of defiance and fear palpable even in the lyrics cited above, and notable in a lot of her music, is part of it, I think. As a woman, I relate to the overriding sense of hope greatly - many women have to 'feel the fear and do it anyway' as that famous self-help book is called; we don't have the option of shutting down with sadness as men often do, because women do most of the crucial but unpaid/underpaid and undervalued work in the world, like caring for elderly relatives! There's a bit which repeats and extends the lyrics of the second verse, which made me bawl even harder:

Hey you, yellow and powder blue
Plum brandy by the sea
Gold, red and ruby shoes
I'd like you to come with me -

Hey you, holding me up to the light
Where all the notes are bright
And there's a part of me
My darling -

The images here are so strongly evocative of childhood, it's unbelievable. I never went to the seaside as a child, but even just from reading stuff like Enid Blyton, I hear the mentions of plum brandy and the sea and bright colours and think of childhood. When she talks of being held up to the light, I think of that idyllic happiness when you're a very young child, and you remember being held, talked to, loved... my stomach is getting tight even now! The song seems weird because, if you pay attention all the way through, it seems like she could be simultaneously addressing a lover and a parent, but what she's actually doing is capturing the bittersweetness of the past and the future. She hopes, as an adult, that her lover will love her honestly and fully, unconditionally as that past parent who held her on the beach as a child. (Or so I think). She asserts, almost with pride, that the wrong notes 'are part of me' and then asks, uncertainly, 'will you stay by my side?' Rather than answer this question, the song segues into an invitation: 'I'd like you to come with me -' before effectively fading to flashback, and then ends abruptly. We never know what happened next, and that only hooks me in deeper.

No version of Wrong Notes that I've found ends any differently. It's a mystery, and I would say that that neatly sums up Charlotte Hatherley's music - conveniently reflecting some well-known stereotypes of women, it seems mysterious and enigmatic/childlike and instinctive/poppy and superficial (delete as appropriate), but as in The Yellow Wallpaper (written by her namesake, a considerably more famous Charlotte!), seek and ye shall find. I certainly feel that beneath all the music, you can discern the traces of a real woman - frightened, hopeful, defiant, anxious, sexual, childlike, courageous, cautious and imaginative. It resounds with shapes and colours, she talks about a firebird, a komodo dragon, a ship, a garden... I don't know if she's a self-professed feminist, but she's said this:

I've got a wicked band assembled, I've got two girls in it which is good because that's one thing which I've realised - I don't have to do things I don't want to anymore, I'm never going to tour without having another girl so it's cool.

How awesome is that? Instead of engaging in 'exceptional woman syndrome'-type behaviour, after having been the only woman in an otherwise all-male band for about 10 years, she's actually supporting other women. 'Exceptional woman syndrome' is where women think that they don't need other women because (in the words of Shakesville), they buy into the contradictory BS that 'it’s a meritocracy, that the quality of our work will carry us to success. Because we are different. Better.' EWS leads to women who have made it through seriously toxic environments - whether the workplace or the family - attributing it to their own super-specialness and refusing to acknowledge their debt to their female predecessors, and/or, all too often, screwing over other women who follow in their footsteps. It's the basis of marriage in India even to this day (not just India), allowing mothers-in-law to make life hell for their daughters-in-law in the guise of teaching them how to behave. In its most toxic form, EWS provides the basis for 'exceptional' women to serve as patriarchal patsies, delighting sexist men and decrying egalitarian measures by effectively going 'Sexism? What sexism? I never experienced any in _______ (insert male-dominated field)' thus making life harder for women who have experienced sexism and are seeking some female solidarity. Sarah Palin's a good example of an Exceptional Woman, but you find them everywhere - the worst kinds of hypocrites.

While the press has no right to hound women like Amy Winehouse and Britney as it does (and I'm NOT implying that they deserve it in any way), CH is on the whole very un-celeb as she generally keeps attention off herself and entirely on the music, which I love. It's way more interesting. I have to say that AW's behaviour does annoy me a bit - I want her to start channelling her talent back into music, but unfortunately given that her music and it would seem, her sense of self revolves a great deal around her relationships with men, that's not likely to happen any time soon. By contrast, CH provides several examples of strong womanhood - in the video for I Want You To Know, she's a boxer and in Behave, a space pilot, whilst she's penned an ode to Kim Wilde and the song Paragon is about idolising a dynamic girl called Caroline. Grey Will Fade, the title track of the first album, is about GIRL LOVE - her comforting her beloved friend Fay - I mean, maybe she is supposed to be singing with a male voice, but from the tone of the lyrics, I don't see any evidence of it. Turns out she also said this:

"I want people to come to this tour and see me Jen and Charley playing guitar really fucking well and see that there are lots of girls out there who can do it. I really hope people and even girls in the audience can get inspired by that."

Do you love her yet? I'm falling in love all over again.