Who Wants To Talk About Love: A Guest Post by Jade Bird
Vinyl LP $28.99
Who Wants to Talk About Love
Who Wants to Talk About Love
Artist Jade Bird
In Stock Online
Vinyl LP $28.99
Who Wants To Talk About Love is Jade Bird’s third studio album, following Jade Bird and Different Kinds of Light.
Who Wants To Talk About Love is Jade Bird’s third studio album, following Jade Bird and Different Kinds of Light.
This album feels a lot more like a novel in a way. I wrote it over the span of four years that coincided with some of the most excruciating years of my twenties, my engagement fell apart, my relationship with my Father crumbled and every time I thought the sound of my next chapter had reached a conclusion, the vehicle would swerve. My writing is so intrinsically linked to my emotional state and has been a healthy vice ever since my Mother and I moved back in with my Grandma, after the divorce. I picked up the guitar that was dusty from my Grandma’s abandoned lessons and horded it in my room, learning chords from songs and using them to make my own. Little did I know, at twenty-five I would be halway through my third record.
A book I was moved by while making it, was by an Australian non-fiction writer called ‘The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death.’ It follows a transwoman who has battled unspeakable cruelty and works as a cleaner, eradicating evidence of the saddest scenes. As I battled with the shameful fallout of my own emotional messes I found this so profound and was sobbing by the end of it.
Influences were less obvious as I tried to make an album that sounded entirely like the self I had lost in the relationship, but an artist I still exercise my obsession with through her Substack is Laura Marling. When I spoke of shame before, I think of her piece ‘Judgement’ In it she says, ‘The idea that living is a slow revelation, one that, when approached correctly, produces its own desire to continue, is beautiful to me.’ this resonated with me so much because that’s the part I find so frustrating, the fact we can’t see the other side when we are so in the thicket, immersed in the weeds of our circumstance. I think songwriting for me allows me to paint a small picture of that moment, I can look back on the struggle and see the sketch and how it made the greater picture, I guess it’s a reminder to not skip through the journey. With that, I’d love to recommend her album ‘Song for Our daughter’.
My album was finished about a year ago now but right up to the last second, I still couldn’t find an album title, so when my manager reminded me of an old song ‘Who wants.’ I went back and listened to it. What I didn’t expect to find was a sixteen year old me, echoing the same sentiments I was experiencing at 27 but through the perspective of my mother and grandmother’s experiences. Having seen three marriages fall apart by that time, a lot of the songs from then explored the theme of, ‘How did we get so far from where we began.’ Hearing it sowed up the beginning and the end, here I was looking for answers, and instead it seemed like the same questions repeated. I wanted to talk about it, so I titled the album ‘Who wants to talk about love?’
To end this I want to give you my favorite book I’ve read that navigates the simplicity of existence and miscommunications , Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. However, my all-time favorite author is Herman Hesse, with that power couple, you can’t go wrong.