MY CULTURAL LIFE ANNA NEWELL

BOOK DOPPELGANGER

I’m slowly making my way through this Naomi Klein book. I’m intrigued and terrified by the changes in how we collectively think and act have been impacted by both social media and Covid. How Klein draws a picture of her own very particular and peculiar experience and relates it to our collective experience is fascinating. Years ago I read, and re-read, Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation and it had a similar impact on me – the growing evidence that how we’ve chosen to interact with technology has created a palpable drop in the development of empathy in children.

TV TED LASSO

I’m still mourning coming to the end of the fabulous Ted Lasso.

It’s a gorgeously, hysterically profound treatise on masculinity. Several episodes, particularly the penultimate one, reduced me to a sobbing mess. It felt like humanity and hope with the lightest possible touch. It was one massive redemption story with many tiny ones within it, without ever feeling solemn or preachy, and was all the more moving for it.

PODCAST BLINDBOY

I’m very late to the party but

I’m a total fan of The Blindboy Podcast. I do a fair bit of driving for work and I’ve listened to close to most of the episodes. He’s astonishing; I’ve found his mental health stuff really personally useful and a load of his other stuff hugely insightful and just ridiculously amusing, and sometimes all of those things at once. I’d say he’s a national treasure but I’m not entirely sure of what he’d make of that.

THEATRE THE NEW VICTORY

This is a fabulous theatre on West 42nd Street in New York that only presents work for young audiences. I took my first ever baby show Babble there in 2013 and was scheduled to play Four Go Wild in Wellies in March 2020. It’s finally going there this year [May 31 to June 16] in between Nuremberg and Oslo, so I can’t wait to see how they get on.

anyone else, I’ll get there on my own.

What was going on in your life when you wrote it?

I was free, I was single. I was at a point in my life where I allowed myself to have some fun. I could let my hair down. I was feeling confident again for the first time in a while, like I was coming back to me.

I feel very proud of myself for coming out the other side of a break-up that could’ve broken my confidence and maybe broken my career – but instead of wallowing in pity, I picked myself back up and managed to make a better version of myself.

I’m also very grateful for the experience, because I finally started living a life where I wasn’t thinking about what other people would say about me.

Tell me a story about you at the time of writing it?

It was after a time in my life when I’d been sofa-surfing on my friends’ couches, trying to find somewhere to live after my break-up. I felt so dependent on everyone else.

I felt extremely lonely. I was coming out of a long relationship and I was one of the only single girls in my group at the time, which made me feel unlovable.

I then moved into a room in a house, went to LA for the first time and started to rebuild my confidence. Life on my own didn’t seem scary anymore; it was exciting and exhilarating. Having to rely on myself gave me confidence.

But all this is something that took a long time, and I hope this empowers others to start being their own queens.

What inspired you to write the line: “I don’t need a new man/I can be my own queen”?

I’ve always been the type of girl that has one shift and I’m like: ‘When am I meeting your ma?’ And this stage, when I was writing Queen, I was so over that. I wasn’t that needy girl anymore. I didn’t need a man to want me anymore.

What prompted the line about the Virgin Mary?

I went to a convent school and I sang in the church choir, so Mary has always been a dominant female figure in my life.

We all know about the Immaculate Conception and this line is the about the feeling of being free from sin. My nan was very religious, so yes, it was an influence when I was growing up.

I always loved choir harmonies [you can also hear the influence of them at the opening of Queen ]and I always thought churches were so grand and beautiful. Big stainedglass windows, huge gold chandeliers – it was pretty juicy-looking.

How do you look back on the song overall?

I love it, to be honest. It could be one of my favourite songs I’ve written. Maybe it’s because I let my guard down with this song, not only just the songwriting but also the production.

I always knew the production had to have a dark, gritty feel to it, as that would help marry up the lyrics and really portray the emotion of this song, which is sexy and empowering.

I wanted it to be a song that, if you heard it when you’re out, you’d want to sexy-dance to it – it’s all about making the listener feel sexy.

What were the musical influences on you when you wrote the song?

My first influence came was from when I was younger, singing in church. I loved the Gothic type of choir sound and I wanted to open with that idea, which you hear at the start of the song. It’s a motif that runs throughout the entire track.

I’ve always been the type of girl that has one shift and then I’m like: ‘When am I meeting your ma?’