Delightfully Grim look at life for this Derry girl...
Bridie Mons-Watson tackles mental health in comic way
Derry singer-songwriter Bridie Mons-Watson, better known to all as SOAK, has taken almost four years to follow up her feted 2015 album, Before We Forgot How To Dream. But Friday brought the welcome release of Grim Town, a more textured and varied album than her charmingly gauche folktinged first effort.
In 2016, it won the Choice Music Prize and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. While the first was borne out of the teenage experience of growing up in the north’s Maiden City, Grim Town encompasses her move to Manchester, her growing comfort with her sexuality, but more than anything it’s an album about mental health; losing it, regaining it and keeping it.
The first track, All Aboard, a spoken word entreaty, voiced by her grandfather, advises those who lack empathy for the marginalised, and people in pain, not to listen to the album.
‘I did it to set the scene for the listener coming to Grim Town. The way I structured the album is to start in a rut, then try to crawl out of that and see some sort of light above you,’ she says.
‘The album is all about mental health, but I wanted to have a sense of comedy about it. That’s how I deal with mine; I make jokes about things. The way I worded the intro is comically depressing.’
Get Set Go Kid, The first song ‘proper’ is another scenesetter, but like the other songs on the album, it is about her particular take on the human condition and speaks to, and of, people who are in a similar situation to her.
‘Get Set Go Kid is self-deprecating in a way, talking about my situation but says, “hey, I’m still here, surviving, and there’s so much I want to do with my life”,’ the 22-year-old says.
‘When I moved out of Derry and over to Manchester, I thought all my issues would be solved, and
they weren’t and that’s what I’m trying to get across.’
The album might be called Grim Town but light breaks through on a number of tracks, most notably, Knock Me Off My Feet, unsurprisingly released as a single and a summery earworm, that evokes her particular teenage kicks in the self-styled home of rock and roll.
‘That’s exactly what I wanted it to be. I was thinking about all the things that I had done with my friends when we were teenagers that were illegal, but we would have got away with,’ she laughs. ‘That’s why it is so upbeat, poppy and nostalgic. The lyrics reflect the love/ hate relationship I have with my home town and of feeling limited.’
I spoke to Bridie a few days before the murder of young Belfast journalist Lyra McKee in the home town for which she declares that love/hate relationship. Like people the world over, Bridie, who like Lyra, identifies herself as a lesbian, was appalled at what had happened in the city which nurtured her talent. She tweeted on the night of Lyra’s murder: ‘Devastated to hear of the events unfolding tonight in Derry. Our city is so much more than these unjustifiable acts of hate and terror. Not in our name.’
Speaking of her home city to me, she said: ‘When I was coming through, doing my first shows, I found nearly everyone was very supportive and keen to help. There is a small-town mentality though. When someone gains a bit of traction, some people can become bitter about it, but for the most part, it is supportive. The calibre of talent that has come through for such a small place is very impressive.’
Grim Town is not Derry, nor Manchester, more – she says – a state of mind. She compares and contrasts the Bridie who beguiled us when she first appeared as SOAK at 16 with her 22-year-old self on the track Life Trainee.
‘The older you get, the less ignorant you can get. When the press was attaching labels to me, I took it all in because I was susceptible (to it). When I took a step back, and realised who I was, it was a huge step for me and my identity,’ she says.
SOAK’S new album Grim Town was released on Friday. She kicks off an Irish tour at the end of May. See www.soakmusic.co.uk for details.
‘When someone gains traction, some people can become bitter about it’