Of You

"Of You" is a melodic industrial song that I found on my hard drive circa 2021, recorded during hard lockdown. It didn't have a title (just "build up idea") so I took the only lyric I could hear as I didn't want another "untitled". I think I did this in a day while living in an city apartment, so I had to record and mix everything quietly (hence no screams).

I don't usually open up about my private life anymore because I have a tendency to overshare, but I feel I have a lesson to teach here.

Lockdown wasn't good for my mental health, and I recorded this and threw it away to somewhere on my HDD thinking it was absolutely dogshit. Luckily I did not delete it. Turns out depression makes you hate things that were actually OK you are working on, especially in hindsight when you recover from it. I *hated* my singing at the time for not just the usual dysphoric reasons, but also the reason Codeine's vocalist bumped into: sometimes when you are depressed, things just sound wrong for no reason, and you throw things out. In their case, they (nearly) threw out an entire album (Dessau) because the vocalist hated a "hissy frequency" in his singing which disappeared with medication. They did in turn release The White Birch after - which is a masterpiece - however when they found the old recording of Dessau, it turned out it was good all along and they released it.

I felt like this with my voice, and still occasionally do and am starting professional coaching soon. But it goes to show: save your work even if you think it sucks at the time, and return to it later in a different mood.

The song is by no means perfect and I don't think I'll "finish it off" any time soon, but it isn't as bad as I thought at the time. There are a few others of this period which could be thought of as a 'lost EP', which I never really released as I felt they were a little soulless because of lockdown. I felt like when I stopped playing shows I felt the vitality was lost of my music and I also stopped enjoying doing it. Now that I am back to playing shows (and found meds that work) I felt my creativity as well as general wellbeing return. Lockdowns were necessary to save lives, however I wish they had some more mental health resources during it for people who needed it (For those overseas: here in Melbourne, we had among the strictest in the world in 2020-21 including 8 months where it was illegal to leave the house except for work, essential goods etc. It was intense, but it did save lives.)

Let me know if you want lyrics. I am not too sure I can find them, nor do I know where the original ableton project of the song is, but if theres demand I can give it a look. And let me know if you liked it too.