For the 1st time in my life, and all in a matter of weeks, I will have officially released two of my original songs and will be singing at my first real live concert where people actually pay money to watch various talented South African musicians and songwriters perform.
The blood, sweat and tears it took me to get here seemed insurmountable. But somehow, through it all here I am. And although it's no where near over, and there are still so many mountains I want to climb and stages I want to sing on, I sit here on the eve of my 37th birthday, filled with a mixture of excitement for the future and melancholic reflection of the past. tonight, I'll take you back in time, on a crazy musical journey with me.
One Last Time (Embalm) - Teaser Advert: Full Official Release date 02.03.2022
A Song of Hope - Teaser Advert: Full official release 21.03.2022
Isn't it absolutely insane how, as a musician, the one thing I ache for the most is also the one thing I fear the most? I have spent the majority of my post pubescent life staring at my song file with dread and regret, wishing I had done something with my dreams and the 90-something compositions I never finished. And now that I've dug them all up and I've shook them off, I'm assaulted with an incredible cocktail of sheer joy and simultaneous terror.
Look, I talk about my "pre-dark year" life, (pre-millennium: giving away my age here) as if I was this sprightly energetic and unwaveringly confident young vocalist, but that isn't really true now, is it? Really, even then, I was full of self doubt and each stage appearance was utterly terrifying. Honestly though, it was a lot easier to get up and keep doing it back then. Youth definitely brings with it, measurably more resilience, powered by the naivety and hopefulness of really just having not fallen flat on your face yet.
Photo source: me on my 5th Birthday, 32 years ago
I started out following my dad and sister around, singing along to Christmas carols, learning harmonies and picking up as much guitar as I could, when I could actually pick one up, of course. My mom taught me to tinker on the piano, and really, I grew up immersed in music.
Music was the gift my incredibly broken parents gave to me that enabled me to escape and dream and breath and sing through so much trauma. I managed to carry it with me everywhere, all this time, and even when I thought it was gone completely, I could still pick up my guitar and play those 5 songs I never forgot, or get up on stage after too much tequila at a girls night out and blow the socks off everyone at karaoke. I started doing a lot more karaoke after my divorce, but I'll never forget my best friend's words one night: "You're wasting your time here, Claire. You are never going to get noticed here in a dingy karaoke bar." And you know what, I hated her words, because I really thought I'd just rocked that Gloria Gaynor number, but mostly I hated what she said because I knew she was right. I thought I was being brave, but I was still playing it safe, because in the morning, no one would remember my name. No one would l remember that I missed a word or didn't hit that note absolutely perfectly. There was no real risk, but I still got to sing, right? Win-Win? No. It's wasn't at all. It was a loose-loose, because inside I didn't want to be, but I was just another Pop Idols failure, pouring my heart and soul into that Adele song to a bunch of drunk people at karaoke. And every night I went, I woke up in the morning feeling spent and empty, like a one night stand.
Photo Source: That time I actually queued and auditioned for Idols (spot the Claire at Left-centre). 10 hours in the queue and when it came time to sing, absolutely nothing came out. I could only whisper. Side note: Yes, that is Mark Haze at the bottom left! He certainly did stand out that year, and I got to meet him many years later. Incredibly talented and such a down to earth, cool guy.
Rejection sucks. There's no way around that, and as an incredibly sensitive and passionate person, who also happens to be an artist, I am wide open for assault, and it's not the constructive criticism or a random nasty comment from a stranger that bites. It's the spiteful comments, laced with the guise of "better you hear it from me," from Aunty whoever and grampa so-and-so and whatever relative or friends with no professional musical opinion of substance coupled with pure nastiness fueled by their wasted bitter lives, that ultimately stick out among all the incredibly warm and encouraging feedback I get. Out of 1000 beautiful responses to a work of mine, I can get one nasty comment from someone close to me, and I'm shattered. How do I even begin to navigate that? How do I build up a wall, without loosing the very thing that makes me special as an artist - which is my drive for vulnerability and connection? I am the queen of disassociation when I need to be, but I've also learnt through years of abuse, that I cannot selectively disassociate. I either feel it all or nothing at all.
Photo Source: That Time I sang at a family wedding and I couldn't recover from that one missed chord, but despite one or two the critics in the crowd, the person I love the most in the world had my back and helped me back on track.
“If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives, but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgement at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you're criticizing from a place where you're not also putting yourself on the line, I'm not interested in your feedback.” - Brene Brown
I tried out for the choir in Sub B (which was our equivalent of grade 2 in 1993) and I was so shy and scared, that when I sang at the audition, nothing came out. I didn't make it. I was very hurt at the time, I mean, I sang perfectly in tune, and I didn't miss a word, but the teacher could not hear me. In my effort to be perfect, I was not audible, and if that isn't an analogy for most of my musical life, I don't know what is.
But what is really awesome and I draw on this for inspiration all the time, is what I did afterwards. I did not stop singing. I would sing all the way to school and I would sing all the way home. I would sing in the changerooms at school and in the bath at home. I sang on the bus, I sang in the park. I sang to myself all day long, like my own Disney movie. A never-ending childhood musical. Never mind knowing every lyric to every song of every Disney movie that came out in the 90s, I tortured my poor mother by reciting the entire script: word for word, for both The Lion King and Beauty and The Beast. Mom, I still owe you therapy for that.
I stopped minding that I wasn't an ideal fit for the choir and carried on with my life. By the time I reached grade 5, I had discovered Mariah Carey's "Hero" and I was obsessed. I wasn't even much of an R&B fan, naturally gravitating towards rock, pop and country, but when I heard this woman's voice, she shook me to my damn core. I'd stop at the CD shop in Cavendish on the way home every day, wait for my turn in the booth. I'd pull out a school exercise book writing down the lyrics, while I listen to that song over and over and over and over until I had learnt every single trill and twist and turn. Every lyric. Every expression and each shift in emotion and volume. I had absolutely no intention of sharing my obsession with the world until my sister and I were walking home one day, and I must have drifted off and forgotten she was walking with me. I started singing it and she just about jumped out of her skin. She exclaimed :"Oh my god, you belong on a stage!" And with those words, my dream was really born. I truly began to believe.
We had a talent contest that year, and I got a family friend to begrudgingly make me a backing track on his casio keyboard, and off I went to sing my heart out to the world.
Let me tell you that all that practicing meant almost nothing when the day finally came and I was standing alone on stage, with my backing track being played out of a horrid little tape player with hardly any volume in this massive hall, in front of the ENTIRE school. But this time, when I opened my mouth, the song did come out. I received my 1st standing ovation and my life was forever altered.
I spent the next two years at school completely doted on by the junior and senior choir mistresses. Aside from a very unusual midyear direct invitation to join the choir, I was offered countless solos and performed in every singe school concert I could, playing my own composition for the 1st time on stage when I was in grade 7. I also scored the coolest lead role in our school musical as The Wicked Witch of the West, winning me that year's "Streetwise Drama Award."
When I got to highschool, I performed Anni Lennox's Sweet Dreams at the Cape Town City Hall, for which I received my 2nd standing ovation and I became the only grade 8 vocal soloist in the highschool jazz club, singing duets with the Matric boys and earning me dirty looks from the matric girl vocalists (I would be lying if I said that wasn't awesome).
Then it all fell to peices. I cant explain it really. A combination of heartache, hopelessness and loneliness stole the song right out of my heart.
I tried entering one last talent show at the beginning of grade 9 (also known as "The Dark Year"). I had planned to sing something grand, and ended up singing The Rose, because I chickened out, and there I was again, like my 1st choir audition, standing in front of a massive hall of people, singing with no sound.
Photo source: me picking up the guitar again at 23, in-between two soul destroying relationships.
Between then and now, I lost 16 years to two failed relationships, all music-less. When I found my freedom, eventually, I did start singing again, but really, I didn't even know what my own voice was supposed to sound like. I'd forgotten. I could mimic anyone from Alanis Morrissette to Adele, to Sheryl Crow, but when I tried to sing my own songs, I sounded like no one. I stuck to karaoke, because it gave me short bursts of serotonin and affirmation, like cheap drugs, but left me feeling totally unfulfilled and frankly a little used.
At 34, on the very last day of 2019, I met my partner and soulmate, @Zakludick. His love and support, (coupled with the hard Covid lock-down in South Arica, which meant there was literally absolutely nothing else I could use as an excuse to not sing anymore) simultaneously made me strong and broke down all my walls: forcing me to love fiercely and open my heart entirely, and in this process, I found the voice I had lost.
Most importantly, once again I find myself brave enough to believe in myself and to sing the songs in my heart as loudly as I can, because I know what life is like without them.
