Just few months ago, I stumbled into The Big Moon’s Wide Eyes. Their first hit single for the new album Here is Everything. The lead singer, Jules Jackson, said in an interview “I was a mess but I also felt this new kind of happiness that I’ve never felt before, I felt like I just needed to write about it.”
Somehow the song echoes an universal celebration of life.
Bless the dust bеhind us
All your love relievеd me of
And if I could cherish
Every single thing
After Wide Eyes is released, I quite highly anticipate the album. Turns out, the album feels like a deep self discovery journey through motherhood. The album finally got me back to buying a digital album. It’s great that with a fiver I can get the extended digital album to get the two extra songs. Plus side, the artwork is lovely drawn by Miranda Webster.
It’s a beautiful art with multiple interpretations once you understand the album is so close to pregnancy.
It started with Two Lines, a slow burn song where Jackson sang:
Nothing’s changed
But nothing feels the same
Nothing’s changed
But nothing feels the sameHow does my head not split
With what’s inside of it?
The world it drew with 2 little lines upon a stick
I believe every person can have their own experience about seeing “two lines”. Whether it’s their own or it’s other people two lines. In many ways, I do believe that nothing will ever be the same after that two lines.
It then followed by Wide Eyes which easily become one of most on-repeat song in the past months. The next song is a song that I wish to have a video clip soon. It’s probably not easy to top the beautiful hand-choreography in the Wide Eyes video. But, Daydreaming is my favorite in this album and I hope it can get great video treatment.
Daydreaming is song that the band said is about daydreaming whilst breastfeeding. A situation that I will probably never experience. In Guardian interview, Jackson said: “With the song, I was trying to make it nice for myself and, I guess, recover a bit. Get some distance from it by writing a song that I wanted to dance to.”
I can’t imagine the hardship of breastfeeding. The emotional struggle to experience such an enormous change in life. I do believe postnatal depressions are real. And I am deeply fascinated by the awesome artists that can truly unfold the pains to form meaningful arts.
I believe that’s this album is all about.
Oh, wherever I go
You’re the wind blowing through my mind
Whatever I cared about before this
Don’t mean a thing to me now
There is a song about how surprising life can be as well. Suckerpunch brings the right emotion to the album.
You been waiting for the future
Like a heavyweight champion
But when you think you beat thе underdog
She lands her suckеr punch
In the middle of the album, it gets deeper and more emotional. I think My Very Best is a song that probably portrays that no one will be 100% ready to be a parent.
But I don’t know
You’re born into this mess
If I do my worst
If I do my very best
I did it all for you
It got me wandered if I have been empathetic enough to my mother.
What did it feels for her to give birth to me?
Was she ready to have me as her kid?
Was I a surprise and a shock to her world back then?
And then there is Ladye Bay that feels like a little joy that a mother can have in between being a mother, but in the end you will miss your baby. The next track is also great. Trouble is a powerful and groovy song about the emotional and physical pain of giving birth.
I don’t need your praise, I need your presence
Compliments don’t lift you off the floor
This will come, this will go
I know that as well as I know
The shape of my face when I’m holding my head in my hands
It’s truly poignant. And then it gets truly reflective at the bridge.
I never know if I’m holding you or you’re holding me
Never thought love would be like fear
I’m scared for everyone I hold dear
That day I swear
This bridge went somewhere else
And not all of me came back
The more I repeat this album, the more feelings that I can feel. I feel in High and Low, the band truly pours the shared emotions that early phase of motherhood is far, far from easy.
There’s a creeping vine in my foundations
I wonder if you can die from sleep dеprivation
The last song in the album is the most emotional for me. It feels like a song from the mother to the baby, hence the title Satellites. However, I feel that the song can speak both ways; about your kids, about your parents. It’s also the most poetic song for me.
Now I see it plain
Behind me is a chain
Mothers who made their mistakes
I wonder which parts of me
My kids are going to hate
It’s deeply introspective.
Pregnant with the start
But heavy with the end
I can almost hear the drawbridgе coming up on my independencе
I can’t be selfish like I wanna be anymore
And then in the mellow part of this song, the band sang:
And maybe you’re right, it’s cool
But this satellite will change my rules
The little satellite that we probably bring to the world will most likely change our lives. And the song got me pondering about selfishness.
In several aspects, me and my partner’s life has not been about us for quite some time in the past years. Does it fair and safe to even think about new creature to come into our little mess?
Or, have we been selfish but we are not aware?
.
And then the last lines hit hardest.
I could never hate you
’Cause you did what you wanted to do
Could we ever hate our mother? Could we ever hate our kid?
There is a sadness about that. But, more or less, I have a little more understanding now that most of us don’t know what do we really want.
And I try to believe that most people are trying to do their very best with the time they have.
What if as soon as I can make the time
You’re old enough to start to say goodbye?
In the end of the day, I also try to believe:
Trouble don’t last forever
Trouble is your memory’s might
The extended version is definitely worth to buy. Have been a new fan of Celia Archer the bassist for a while after I dig The Big Moon. It’s great to listen to her singing her song in Round Forever.
This album is released at a truly strangest time of my life at the moment. And I try to be more grateful and more empathetic with this album. Especially to those close me.
Deep inside, it’s a charming love letters to motherhood. An album that I know I can get back too when I need to.
I think it’s a really great album for women out there. As Jules said in instagram:
I don’t think enough mothers have the time to tell their stories, especially during the wild ride of the first months of parenthood.
So, I hope by adding mine to the pile, exhausted and lovesick mums might feel a little bit more seen.
Thank you Jules, Celia, Fern, and Soph.
