Hi!
When we finished making "Crybaby" Sara and I each wrote a little piece about the album. Alongside those pieces we each submitted some photos that we felt were aesthetically aligned with the music. I thought since the anniversary of "Crybaby" just passed I'd share these. A huge thank you to everyone who supported this album. There were many moments in the last few years when we truly considered not making any new music ever again. I’m glad we did.
Also, I have included the demo version of Faded Like A Feeling for those interested. You’ll have to be a paid subscriber to hear it though. I wrote a rough version of the song before a trip to LA to record with John Congleton. Sara and I went into the studio just the two of us to finish it when we got there. We ended up fighting instead, and Sara left, so I finished the song without her. I stole many of the lyrics for the bridge from another song of hers. Even though Sara drives me nuts, she’s a fantastic lyricist. I’m grateful to be in a band with her, and to have the chance to pilfer her discarded lyrics for inspiration. Some of the lyrics in this demo version didn’t make the album version so it’s a real bonus this week for paid subscribers. Thank you to all of you for supporting our work. And for those who aren’t paid subscribers, I totally get it, but for $6/month you’re not only supporting us, you’re getting to hear demos and other fun things! More to come.
Wishing you all a good week.
-Tegan
"Crybaby"
Tears have always come easily to me, even when I didn't want them to. I cried on the first day of school every year until I was twelve, at summer camp, during sleepovers, in the back of the van when I was eight years old, and my dad told me about wisdom teeth and how I'd have to have mine removed eventually. I cried in the heat of the moment when I was fighting with a friend or facing a teacher at school about a late assignment. Once, I cried so hard and so long during a fight with my mom and Sara when I was sixteen that my eyes swelled, and I couldn't go to school the following day. I cried when my best friend left for university, I cried over a broken heart at twenty-one. I cried while banging on Sara's apartment door when she threw me out while we were recording a song together when we were twenty-two and making "If It Was You." I cried on stage in Glasgow after she punched me in the face during a huge fight backstage before the show. I cried in my bunk on the tour bus that night as we crossed Scotland. I cried outside a Greek restaurant after I got in a fight with my girlfriend, and she left me to walk home alone. I cried when my Gramma died when I was twenty-four, and I cried for months after a rejection at twenty-six that I couldn't wrap my head around. I cried when my favorite aunt passed away when I was thirty-five. I still cry if I think of her too late at night.
I've cried a lot about love but also revelled in the inspiration that follows loss, hurt, frustration, anger, emptiness, and disappointment. First come the tears, then comes the music. I have funnelled all those emotions into songs and used all the sadness I can find within me to create for as long as I can remember. I have never felt ashamed of crying; I have never felt weak for having so many emotions, for feeling so vulnerable, for needing a lot of support.
I have been teased a lot about how much I cried as a kid and even more as an adult for singing about crying, especially by Sara. Which is funny, since she's the biggest crybaby I know.
When it came time to write our new album, I felt stuck about what to write about. Love? Loss? I had already written about all the love and loss I could think of. Change? The Pandemic? Fantasy? Lust? The Tiger King? Everything I sent Sara received a lukewarm response. It hurt my feelings. "Try harder, dig deeper, search somewhere new for inspiration," she wrote me after months of rejections. So, I tried harder, wrote about my body, about age, about love, about the loneliness I felt in the last couple of years, even though I was at home, somewhere I always longed to be. I wrote about how it feels to have everything you want and a desire to throw it all away. I wrote about destruction, my own and people's around me. I wrote about my dreams, the ones while I slept and the ones I built during the day. I cried a lot in the last two years, and it felt good. First came the tears, then came "Crybaby."
