“I wanted to capture the feeling of remembering being trapped in a situation with someone that I knew wasn’t going to change, and the freedom that hindsight offers. I had a moment of being able to look back on something and say ‘no that person was never going to do the work they needed to in order to change their behaviour and patterns’ that I felt great clarity.
I wrote the bones of the track in one sitting in my friend’s flat. They were kindly letting me stay in while they were away, using a guitar they had in their bedroom. That guitar track is the one still in the finished song, recorded in the moment on their bed using my MacBook mic. Sophie Gwen Williams is playing cello on the track. She was an incredible artist and a very close friend of mine. We got to do a filmed performance together last March, and I thought we’d get a chance to record it ‘properly’ in a studio, but she passed away before we could. The recording you hear in the song is the recording from that performance, the one and only time we got to play the track together”.
Video Credits:
Directed by Zoe Greenway
Assisted by Leigh Arthur, Colman Keane, and Ellen Goodwin
Special thanks to Ben Spillane
About the video:
“The video is for my friend Sophie Gwen Williams, who plays cello on the song. She passed away last May, a few weeks after we had done an initial live recorded performance of the track, that we thought was going to be followed up with a studio session, but we never got the chance to do that. I had made her a dress for the performance out of pink tulle – the same fabric I have with me in the video. She was a really inspirational and encouraging person, and I wanted to create something that shows how I carry her with me, even though I no longer have her physically here.
I’m in a band called M(h)aol with Zoe Greenway, who directed this video, and she creates all the visuals for that band. Having a chance to collaborate on this with her made me feel really safe. We shot it in The Maharees in Co Kerry in south west Ireland, an area I have been going to with my family for years. It’s a very special place to me, and I’ve always wanted to shoot there, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.”
Song Credits:
Written by Fears
Produced by Fears and Joe Brown
Cello by Sophie Gwen Williams
Cello Recording by Cameron Stewart
Mastered by Huntley Miller
Artwork by Zoe Greenway