Track Diary: "The Clown"

Do they know you are a clown?

During my second ketamine assisted psychotherapy (KAP) session, I made contact with a part of myself that had been hiding.

It presented as a blue-faced, masculine clown. An intimidating figure in my imagination. As I stayed with the clown and got to know him, I found that he represented a part of my gender that had been fragmented. From that day on, I began integrating the clown into my daily life. I wrote this song after a solo date to a queer cabaret.

Pick you up at a quarter till nine

Got my tallest boots

My leather and my anxious mind

This song is about self-acceptance, gender identity and expression, being turned on, and the vast unknown fear and excitement of intimacy.

I heard that David Bowie would dress up in the studio when he was making records. I had brought dress-up clothes that I thought I’d wear when we played Jazz Fest a week earlier, but instead, I wore them during the recording session. The band caught on to my process, and it was fun to surprise them each morning with a lewk. Nothing too wild, but alluding to a vibe that would carry into the music. For The Clown, I wore my favorite outfit: a blazer with huge shoulder pads and low-rise leather pants.

photo by Char Klein.

Clothing and how it makes me feel is a huge part of my process. Going to a vintage store and finding leather pants (that fit!) is a life-changing experience. No feeling quite like sliding on a pair of ancient, creaky motorcycle pants over a g-string. Similar to the first time I put on a cowboy hat. Or a latex body suit. Or a frilly dress.

Recently I was listening to a Fresh Air interview with one of my heroes, Tilda Swinton. I found it relatable in so many ways. Fun fact: in my family, I am also the third of four siblings.

“I have always been truly, sincerely and seriously interested in clothes and what they do for us and to us. I was one of four, but I have three brothers, no sisters, and I didn't have many dresses. I wore a lot of hand-me-downs as the third child often does, and they were boys' clothes and nothing's different. I still wear boys' clothes. They are usually the most comfortable things to wear for me. But the fact that I can wear both and I encourage everybody to wear both, by the way, which is why it's so important for people to understand that clothes are just choices. And we can wear whatever we want and choose our identity every morning or every hour. That aspect of clothing has always been really important for me. I love it.” -Tilda Swinton

Production notes: Arranging this song took some persistence. Sonically, it could have gone very 90s jock-rock, like Alive by Puddle of Mud (which I sometimes listen to unironically), but I didn’t want to lose the softer, feminine touch. FKA Twigs describes it perfectly: the pussy. We established a nice groove that lets it build. I play my Eastman acoustic guitar, tuned down, through an amp for that growly sound. I was gifted a reverb pedal many years ago and finally started to mess with it on this song. Decay all the way up.

Want has bits and pieces of so many different sounds. I do find it amusing that country music is finally having its mainstream moment, but I made a grungey little rock record. I can’t recreate the magic of falling in love with country music for the first time, as evidenced by my first record, This Time Last Night. I have to go towards new sounds that feel fresh and excite me.

Perhaps someday I’ll have circled so far away from country music that it’ll finally be time to come home.

Want comes out in three weeks!!!

xo

ER