NICE NORMAL WOMAN - Behind The Song

DAY 1 of my song-by-song introduction to the new album. Keep checking back here as I dissect one album track a day for the next 12 days right up until the album release on the 17th.

Looking at NICE NORMAL WOMAN

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Order the album here:
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One of my favourite films of all time is ‘All About Eve’ - for those who don’t know it, it’s about the perils of growing older as a woman in the entertainment industry.
I’ve always loved Bette Davies’ character Margo Channing.. her intelligent, slightly catty take on the young pretender trying to knock her off her throne.
The title came from her, ‘write me one about a nice normal woman who just shoots her husband’.

It made me think about all of the subliminal instructions laid at women’s feet from childhood. Be quiet, be virtuous, be a mother, be a siren, don’t speak up, don’t get old, don’t be too smart, don’t be too stupid, stand back, be skinny, be curvy, do it all, want nothing, accept that you’ll fade into the background as you age.

I also got thinking about how we are constantly seeking the explosive moments in personal lives. The stuff that gets fed to us all the time through social and mainstream media. But we miss the beautiful, magical everyday.. particularly in women’s lives because we keep it quiet.

I wanted to start the new album without any pedestal.. trying to create a level so that we could go on a journey together rather than as ‘artist’ and ‘audience’. So instead of trying to be a songwriterly orator, I started by saying:
‘This is not a song, this is not a poem, this is not the way that you pray or a quick how-to for growing..’
It was me basically showing the jugular. That I wasn’t trying to be big or clever.. I was celebrating the ordinary, everyday wonder of my life and inviting you guys to do the same about yours.

I wanted the track to surprise you. After 20+ records, everyone thinks they know what they’ll get from a Thea Gilmore album. But I’m not the same person who made Burning Dorothy. I don’t want a ‘sound’ or a genre. I don’t want to be folk, I don’t want to be rock.. I want to make interesting stuff… tracks that make you think, make you feel something, anything.
This is the sound of me playing in the mud, letting you know I’m no prophet, I’m just trying to make sense of it all like everyone else..
This track opening the record was a statement of intent really.. don’t come with a closed mind and assumptions of what I am or you may be pretty disappointed.