How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S13, Ep6 How To Fail: Self Esteem

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

I'm so excited about today's guest. Self Esteem has been providing me with my preferred soundtrack for life, the universe and just about everything since the release of her BRILLIANT second album, Prioritise Pleasure, last year. I'm not the only one who's obsessed - it was the Guardian's album of the year and earned her a Brit Award nomination. If you haven't yet listened to her soaringly beautiful anthem, I Do This All The Time, then do that right after you've heard this. Promise? Ok, then.Rebecca Lucy Taylor, was born and raised in Rotherham, before becoming one half of indie folk duo Slow Club. When the band broke up, Taylor reinvented herself as a solo artist. Her name? Self Esteem. She joins me to talk about her failure to get into drama school, her failure to 'make it' in music, and her failure at 'happy ever after' in relationships. We also discuss body image, toxic partners and what success really means. It's a goodie. Enjoy.---How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Self Esteem @selfesteemselfesteem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and

journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. My guest today has two names. As Rebecca Lucy Taylor, she was born and raised in Rotherham by a steelworker dad and secretary mum, before becoming one half of indie folk duo Slow Club. When that band broke up, Taylor reinvented herself as a solo artist, reaching for a name that would embody all the empowerment and self-love she most desired. She became Self Esteem, a dazzling musician whose songs take on toxic relationships and mental health, but do so with an infectious, rousing sound that one reviewer described as sun bursting through cloud.

Her second album, Prioritise Pleasure, released last year, won critical acclaim and plenty of accolades. It was the Guardian's album of 2021, and Self-Esteem was nominated for her first Brit Award at the age of 35. The song, I Do This All The Time, came into my life at a crucial moment and has been on shuffle in my Spotify ever since. The lyrics, like, when I'm buried in the ground, I won't be able to make your birthday drinks, but I will still feel guilty, are so good, there was part of me that just wanted to read them out in place of an introduction, but I restrained myself, and plus there's probably a copyright issue.

I have felt very alone most of my life, like what's wrong with me, Taylor said in a recent interview. Her latest success makes me feel this overwhelming relief that I'm not a total weirdo. Self-esteem, you are not. You are amongst friends here. I am so delighted and honoured to say welcome to How to Fail. Don't, I'll start crying. That's the new thing. I cry now. It's awful. That's being in your mid-irties. Welcome to the hormones. Yeah, it's awful, isn't it? I cry about things that aren't to do with myself as well. I'm like, this is weird. I am thrilled. I feel like a proper person being on this. Thank you. You are a legend and I can't thank you enough for the gift of prioritised pleasure,

And I can't thank you enough for the gift of prioritized pleasure, which, as I say, came into my life. I was on this slightly weird, long book tour, which involved cold train journeys across the country. And you were my soundtrack. And you were also this sort of prism. It was like having an IV of my own thoughts, but better articulated, combined with a sort of energy boost directly into my veins. And I can't thank you enough for putting words and sound to what so many of us have been feeling. So I just wanted to start with a massive thank you. Oh gosh, thank you. No, wow. I love it. And that feeling of what is wrong with me that you alluded to in that quote, how long did you feel like that for and what changed?

My whole life, like very much. Like even as a little kid, I can still remember like junior school feeling like not part of it quite. It's really like sad and no one's fault as my caveat across every time I talk about anything yeah just the whole time then obviously like I found pockets of belonging along the way but and just generally as like a human being being alive on the planet it mostly I've not felt like yeah I'm part of it it's really odd and there's no equivalence between our careers really but one of the things that I found when I started doing this podcast was that sense of gratitude and surprise that so many people seem to relate to what I was saying

when I was just being me yeah and I wonder if you have felt that with the reception of prioritized pleasure, do you feel like you're finally being your authentic self and you're being seen for that? Yeah, in general, in my life, more than ever, I'm being myself. And that's been like creeping up for a while. But then to have like loads more people and like people that I really even look up to thinking like they do or about my work now and all of it is just so dangerously validating because I will be like I don't know I'd love to be a nightmare I don't know if I'd just become a total dickhead I don't know if I just haven't processed it yet or not but it's felt very good and right and nice. And I've sort

of cracked on with my agenda anyway. So it's sort of made my life easier career wise just to be understood finally or whatever. And obviously the opportunities are getting better and the fees are getting better. That's finally nice. But like for the most part inside myself, I've not kind of gone, oh my God, my life has changed. You know, I don't feel like I've finally come up to the big city to be made a star. Like it just feels correct, which is kind of a big headed thing to say, but it's all going to hit me at some point. Or if I'm just so ready, things that used to be so important to me sort of aren't anymore. I really did want to be like a cool person like going to cool things

and I really just get excited about like my odd box delivery now and the work you know I really love making the work fame I'm not bothered about yeah but that's your point in prioritized pleasure as well isn't it that thing of you're choosing the thing that is going to make you feel more content yeah and you know I can only speak for myself and I only ever am speaking for myself but for me it was like the thing that I thought would make me content is this thing that's been given over to me for such a long time by like pop culture like or society or whatever these societal norms or these things I should want aren't what I want and challenging that or starting to

as a really good sort of change and that's what I'm on about in the record really and I really only just tapped the surface when I wrote it that I was like oh hang on a minute I might not want to live like this anymore and that might be all right so I'm like an investigative sort of journalist into my own brain on the record at the start of their investigations. And the name Self-Esteem, was there part of you that chose that because you wanted to manifest it? No, and I wish it was because it would be the most amazing example of manifestation working. I've said this quite a bit. It's such a crap story. amazing example of manifestation working I've said this quite a bit it's such a crap story I used to be in a band we had a band name we would often talk about how band names are stupid and rubbish and but the band becoming good means the name is good you know apart from the yeah yeah

yes which is a good band name apart from that every every band name's sort of silly if you think about it so band names were always like a thing we talked about and I always said if I started another band it would be called self-esteem or sex appeal I just thought they were good band names so when I started this I just picked one of them literally so absent-mindedly really and yeah magically it has been the thing I needed so much of I didn't have any. I'm doing it has given me it. So, you know, the movie writes itself, but I'm very sad to admit, I didn't think about it at all. I was a real dickhead in my like 20s. I was like, I hate myself, lol. You know, that was my whole thing. And obviously now I can see, no wonder I found my life very difficult.

Can I ask you about some of your lyrics more specifically because I do this all the time for me was like a modern day version of Sunscreen the Baz Luhrmann track which I know you've said has influenced you as well you want to do a millennial version of that. Yeah yeah definitely yeah I've had two desires songwriting wise and one was to do a millennial version of that yeah yeah definitely yeah I've had two desires song writing wise and one was to do a new sunscreen and one is to do a new dirty Christina Aguilera so watch this space album I don't know how I'll execute it but it's on my mind so oh my gosh will you wear the the chaps well yeah I think it's all a long game just to be able to wear chaps. Yeah, ultimately. So in Do I Do This All the Time,

you say, stop trying to have so many friends. Don't be intimidated by all the babies they have. Don't be embarrassed that all you've had is fun. Prioritize pleasure. I mean, that's so good. That's so good. And I suppose I want to ask you about your writing process and where that comes from.

That song, actually most of my songs, when I think things, I write them in my phone. And it used to be, you know, notebooks, which is a little bit more romantic, but now it is phone notes. I don't even think about them. I've just jot them down. And then when I'm in the studio and I've started a melody or there's a loop or there's something.

And then I'll, I have an agenda about a song I want to write and I write it just totally from scratch. Or I will go through this weird vault of brain burps that I have all day, every day. And like, I do this all the time. I just sort of didn't know what I wanted to do. And I'd had this brief idea of like do a sunscreen sort of thing and I just collated them all I'd luckily had a sort of second wave titillizing myself back in the game of having like kind of a terrible boyfriend which I don't really do that anymore but I just pop back to check I don't want to do that so I had loads of notes

because it was really interesting what it did to me, my sense of self and everything. So anyway, it was a really fertile few months in the old notes. And then, yeah, it's just them all together is the song really. And then later on, there's a passage which is you're moving around too much and you need to stand still. Be more like Maraid. Stop showing off. You're a good girl. You're a good tall girl. You're a good tall girl.

You're a good sturdy girl. And again, massively related because I know we're going to get onto this in your failures, but very often when people find themselves in toxic relationships, they are made to feel like they are too much or they don't fit. And I mean a toxic relationship, not just romantically, but it can be a work relationship as well. And that idea of being tall, which you are, that sense of not being able to shrink yourself physically to fit into society's mold of what you should be. I mean, you just get it all in there. And I also want to know who Maraid is. all in there and I also want to know who Mirade is yeah so that versus things that people have said to me verbatim my whole life they're different people I'm always scared of getting a nasty email so I don't ever want to give too many details but I played in another band and there's another girl in the band and that's Mirade and I was told to not move around as much as I was moving around which is absolutely fine you know it's not my band and you can tell me what to do.

I'm hired as a singer. But it was just really difficult because, yeah, it just highlights everything I've ever... It's a sore point, I guess. And then it was also sort of, from a feminist point of view, interesting to me, like, you're comparing me to the only other woman here and she's got a guitar to play, I don't. What am I going to do?

It was a really rough, weird time in my life that apologies have been made and it's all good but it just really shone a light on that time in my life I had a really bad few years that I didn't help with my behavior and it's just like this enormous penny was like really far away in the sky and I could see it slowly falling that I my place on earth had been to be this woman and by that it was like in my work it was like stand still do shoop shoopy doop look pretty don't be anything more than that and every time I've been anything more than that it's only caused me quite a lot of aggro and then also the rest of that versus we had a tour manager that told me I'd be working at McDonald's so like stop complaining about you know a really bad tour we were on told me I'd be working at McDonald's. So like, stop complaining about, you know, a really bad tour we were on.

Told me I just need to get in, fit in my dress. I don't worry about anything else. Like what I now see are like micro sexism moments. But I had no idea that they were. Still, like I really personally wasn't ready to understand feminism. I was just like really good at playing the game. I'm really good at, well, not really good, but getting less good at putting up with it.

And there was a time anyway. So anyway, I hope I don't get any emails. But also sometimes as women, I don't know about you, but like sometimes you're just telling the literal truth. Exactly. And then you shit yourself. Yes, exactly. Like, oh, I feel such shame.

Am I allowed to do this? You know, it actually happened to me. And it's so interesting hearing you talk because I also feel I've been more radicalised as a feminist the older I've got. And it's partly because I spent my 20s in a fog of willing but ignorant acquiescence. It's sort of, I didn't know what I was saying yes to.

I just thought that those were the rules of the game and I didn't think to question the rules actually until the me too movement came along I think so it's pretty late in the day for me to realize that it didn't have to be this way and it shouldn't be yeah it's fascinating it fascinates me daily still where I'll have like huge moments of oh hang on hang on, that wasn't all right either, was it? Like, and I'm not talking about, you know, God, it's a real minefield, but you know, like men being suggestive or whatever, like I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about like so many times in my life I've come second and my actual self being all these things that I am, for my safety, I had to squash it and stop it that's

you know where prioritized pleasure is coming from is like that penny that was really far away it's still quite far away but it's coming down it's so sort of sad for me but also interesting how many people are identifying with it because it's this is mass con I think that we I'm not being very eloquent, but like this... You're being so eloquent. And that's, you must stop doing that as well. Yeah, no, I just sometimes worry that I sound like it's 3am at, you know, the afters. And I could have a more like scholarly sort of approach to this,

but it's emotionally based. Like my absolute reality has been, it wasn't fair and I enabled it yes I think also one of the reasons that so many people are relating to your songs is because I already describe them as a Trojan horse so they sound a certain way they sound like a sugary rousing pop song but actually the message in there it's sort of a way of sweetening the pill to get the message where it needs to be heard which I think is brilliant can I ask you finally before I get onto your failures about the track I'm Fine for those people who haven't heard it why do you end up barking like a dog at the end of that track? Because I've always been at skin, I will take any job anyone offers me.

And I did a sort of summer school theatre thing with the National Youth Theatre, which was actually amazing. We worked with a load of female identifying young people, but they were between like 18 and 21, I think. We were making this piece of theatre about consent and like a rape trial. And, you know, we had so many conversations,

me and the director I was working with, who's also in her 30s, and these young women were half of the time I would feel so excited because they were so not bothered by gender or their sexuality and things like that. But the thing that had remained just so true was how scared of walking home they were,

you know, still, or scared of men ultimately in a physical sense we recorded them talking about loads of stuff and my original idea was you know that miseducation of lauren hill record there's sound bites of these kids talking between each song and i was kind of going to do that but we actually didn't say there wasn't enough coherent thought to fill an album with. But there was this one girl saying that her and her mates, if they're walking home and there's a man sort of intimidating them, they'll start barking like a dog because men are really scared of women that seem crazy. And I was like, going through all the recordings of them, I'd already written I'm Fine,

which is a song I had to write to sort of absolve myself of the worst thing that's ever happened to me. And the two things just went together so amazingly. which is a song I had to write to sort of absolve myself of the worst thing that's ever happened to me. And the two things just went together so amazingly. I just got goosebumps even thinking about it. What a narcissist. I'm like, that is beautiful art. But it just did encapsulate it. And for me, it's so poignant that this girl is 15 years younger than me. And, you know, it's heartbreaking for me in a way.

But it sort of also galvanizes me to carry on doing what I'm doing I don't know if I've answered that but anyway we bark like dogs and then I was like thinking about the live show like how good it would be just for me personally to every night bark like a mad dog and me and my girls in the band barking like mad dogs and then I thought this is the sort of thing that if you need it in the audience how many times do you get to do that you know without being looked at like a freak so yeah it was a sort of primal scream inclusive moment people bark back they bark back at your gigs which I just think is so brilliant you mentioned there that that is a song that came out of the worst thing that's ever happened to you which is sexual assault how does it feel that you have been able to create powerful art that speaks to so many thousands of other women from that

place of darkness it's so hard to talk about what happened to me was not black and white you know and and that's what sort of artistically interesting for me is that I have no way to speak about it there will never be like justice I don't even know what justice would look like in terms of mine and we are often in the media's bombarded now with these tales of absolutely gruesome dreadful things that happen to people and you go to trial and all and you can go all the rest of it i mean we can talk about how unfair it is for victims to get a fair trial and all that but like that's not kind of not my point but like you can go down the route you can do the big horrible gruesome stories about the terrible terrible attacks the way women are attacked and we know about them but then there's the ones that

we're all 97 of us have experienced which is like the nice guys they're not really realizing it wasn't all right guys that you know the stealth sexual assaults they're just so complicated for you personally to get your head around and so I was just in that fog of like there's nothing I can do about it but move on but it fundamentally changed who I was as a person because who I was as a person was like a flirty fun person who loved like having multiple partners and like living my life as sexually as I want to and it was really hard to even try and write an album if I couldn't write about being a sexy bitch so it was like I had to somehow open the album with like saying what I'm saying which is like I'm not going to change I also don't have an answer I don't feel better about it but every time

I sing it is a one step closer I think and in terms of like a theme or a something to amuse on in terms of writing the way we are sort of like, if you can't be clear-cut with like a ton of evidence and have lived like a saint yourself, it's impossible. And then it makes me muse on like, what is justice and what do I need actually? And I think it helps me to sort of help all the people realize that it's okay to realize that that wasn't all right. I don't know if that makes sense.

It does make sense. I think there's so much of it was just like no it's nothing it breaks my heart that we're all out there going like that's fine because it wasn't yes I think with anything like this there are so many gradations and perpetrators rely on those shades of gray in order as you say that word stealth I think is extremely important in order to test each successive boundary and you've done something really important and thank you for it and thank you also for talking about it because I appreciate how hard it is I'm not very good at it but um it's important to me too oh you're so good at it yeah let's get on something easier which is your failures hey all of them learn up to it

so your first failure and you sort of touched on the fact that you did a a drama summer school but your first failure is your failure to get into drama school so tell us about that did you want to be an actor oh god yeah still do it's so annoying for my poor manager because I'm like you know it's enormous opportunities for me as a musician and I'm like but could I please read for this one line and this one thing and I just want to honestly I just want to be calamity Janeane i do i'm just a repressed musical theater star and it's really hard for people to get their head around because i think like people in musical theater are like i'd love to be like front and center of my own pop star life and i'm like no

i want to be second to the back you know dancer for oklahoma i think it's whatever you start to get into as a kid or like you know when I don't know because I haven't got children but like if you have a kid and they like something you're like oh cool they like this thing we'll encourage that or whatever and I just Calamity Jane just absolutely must have done it for me and it was like a place where my parents my grandparents it's like a unifying thing which is like we'll put a musical on for the kid that likes the musical I don't know do you know I mean and so without realizing I became just like really obsessed with sort of performance and and the glamour of it all and showmanship and then like my dad got me into Queen you know Peter

Gabriel and just my whole life's just been this it makes no sense to me to be anything other than that you know have a spotlight bearing down on you while you're the most fantastic thing saying it so there's no way out of it so did you as a child this is my experience when I was a child I think I was really self-confident of my opinions about the world and I sort of didn't have that sense of self-consciousness that you get as a teenager so do you feel like you were like a happy go lucky child yeah I definitely was and my mum and dad are like the loveliest people in the world and I was always pretty much always allowed to do whatever I wanted but as a kid I think I was just very emotional though. Like things hurt me and scared me, or I was hyper

and like so happy. And that must've been hard to deal with in a way because I wasn't tidy or quiet or just got on with things. I just, everything was extreme. I remember junior school. I really do. I remember feeling heartbroken and scared or jealous or I remember the thing I wanted to do more than ever was just be doing anything so I would play like tennis I played the clarinet I did I would like throw enough shit at the wall and something sticks basically and I just would have done anything just want to be part of everything so fact check this but they were gonna in Rotherham do this turning Rotherham into a seaside town so I think like loads of it must have been like a council thing loads of sand they were

gonna get in and like build a like fake beach in the city centre obviously I was like oh my god and they were gonna pick two kids from each class to help and I didn't get picked I was like the first reserve and I can remember it's the first time I like and I was so upset it felt like it'd be very embarrassing to be that upset you know so what and I faked that I had a headache I like said I had a headache and had to go home and that's why I was crying like that's a lovely precedent of like covering my emotions you know by yeah giving them an excuse. I was a happy kid, but I did shit like that. I found life a lot.

You know, I still do. But now I've found a way to make money out of it. Were you an only child? No, I've got an older brother, but I mean, we could not be more different. He's just all right. You know, I can't speak for him. He's done things. He went to uni, got a job and he's married and he's just kind of calm yeah very

calm and like we both had rabbits my brother's rabbit like lived for ages and like died really peacefully and my rabbit like went missing about 10 times like they found it like dead from pneumonia she lived for about three weeks it was just like okay i'm so sorry it's like your rabbit was in an opera yeah yeah and yeah and his rabbit was in the archers yeah which is so like and i you know and now i'm just learning like that works for his rabbit and what, you know, and I have to love. We've called them Fred and Barney, but mine was a girl. So then we had to call her Frederica, which is, you know, interesting.

Now I'd be like, she can be called Fred. But yeah, that's a good example of like what. My mum and dad are very quiet and shy and calm people. Everyone in my family was I really don't know what happened with me so I suppose because you felt these emotions deeply and you wanted to be part of something drama was a natural extension of that it was just celebrated there you know yeah like it was a way to get that out of my system I suppose so when did you apply to drama school so my high school I had like a couple

of music teachers a drama teacher they were like you know those teachers that like are a bit above and beyond that they treat you like an adult the drama teacher had got a few boys into drama school like one someone had gone to RADA and that was basically like someone from my school had gone to RADA so I was convinced that that could happen for me. I was like leading all the school plays and I lived and breathed it. There was a lot of expectation, I guess, that like maybe I could as well. And now I look back on it and it's like, that wasn't healthy probably for me to be so like, I must do it. I was doing my A-levels and then everyone's applying for unis. And I did apply for unis, but I also did the grand.

It's like 80 quid a time back then I bet it's more now but like to you know my poor mum and dad driving me to about seven or eight drama schools but like 80 quid a pop for me to not get in and then I never went to uni either Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words, supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago, set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis.

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the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like, it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides. Don't you worry. The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise.

Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Why do you think you didn't get into drama school? I think about this still, like potentially I wasn't that good. I'd look at the other people around me and that there is with actors there's an it factor that like maybe I didn't have I remember just going blank every time I did any of the auditions as well so I wasn't and my self-confidence was probably very low like it is big fish small pond stuff isn't it it's like I'm a stunning Audrey in

Little Shop of Horrors in a Rotherham High School but when I'm in the Guild Hall trying to be the competition was too big I don't know I also maintain that I am good though you know like you know like Gaga pivot and Billy Piper pivot into like being an astonishing actress I really plan on it I just don't know when it's gonna be I love that I love the reference points there Billy Piper and Lady Gaga it's just excellent but what do you think that failure ended up teaching you because it sounds like it was it was probably pretty brutal at the time like did you have to go back home and reassess yeah and I took a year out to train and then try again. In that year, I started a band and started touring as Slow Club,

which is my old band. And I never auditioned again. My whole life I've been like, should I have? And right now, what I can absolutely say completely and utterly safely is if I'd have got into drama school, that would have made my life even harder in terms of what I now see has been a journey to have some emotional wellness. If I'd have gone to drama school that would have made my life even harder in terms of what I now see has been

a journey to have some emotional wellness if I'd have gone to drama school and then come out and I was an actor trying to get work my sense of self which has already been rocked by just being myself for a living would have just been you know that sort please, sir, can I have the opportunity? I think that's very, very bad for you, obviously. And I'd have gone even more nuts if that had been my full-time life. So it was an absolute blessing. I often think I don't know how actors cope with the audition process because I know you like I am. We were in veteran people pleasers. we were inveterate people pleasers.

We're sort of recovering people pleasers. And the idea of having to go through an audition process where you need to bring yourself in the sense of like being brave enough to be vulnerable. But obviously you need to inhabit the role that you're auditioning for. And then being found wanting by a panel of people who reject you, there's just no way I could survive. No, absolutely not. And then I am an artist. I have to make the work as well.

I could be an actress and read other people's work, but thank God, because I don't think I'd have learned what my actual true calling, I guess, or whatever is, which is to make the work. And it took a long time to realise that as well you know I was singing everyone else's song for a long time. Talk to me a little bit about people pleasing and where you think that came from. I am a Libra which I'm always like oh I love the Frankie Bridge one that you did oh thank you I was like I bet this bitch is a libra and she's not

she's a capricorn um i don't think it's that but i sometimes do think there's something in it something in it i don't know i think being a little girl i think but you know my parents never did it but i think i was taught to be helpful and kind you know which is perfectly reasonable things to teach your child but I just ran with it and I assume it's something in me that's like it boils down to being liked if I can help you you'll like me I guess but then I don't know it's never crossed my mind to not I've got this mate and she is just like no I'm not doing it and I'm like oh wow wow yeah she just doesn't do anything she don't want to do and I'm like imagine that do you know my husband does that and it's one of the earliest

things he said to me was I never do anything I don't want to do and I was like oh selfish actually I don't think that anymore what I realize is that it means when he says yes to something I know he wants to do it because I've the groundwork's been laid so he's fully committed to that and it just makes everything so much more straightforward and in a way it's the opposite of selfish because you're signaling what you're going to do and what you're not going to do and it's a healthy boundary and I was like wow exactly exactly astonishing imagine it I am teaching myself it'll never come naturally but also I do think it's a survival thing I don't know a survival thing as a woman and certainly in terms of pleasing people I'm just putting this together now, but like me coming into a room being like this

isn't what people want. And then as a defense or a way to be safe from people to just be submissive is the thing I can control. Yes. Yeah. My best friend, Emma, is a psychotherapist. And she says that a lot of women, by no means all, have a strategy of tend and befriend,

where we're taught that kind of evolutionary strategies for our safety are fight or flight but there's also this sense that we can tend and befriend and get someone onto our side and that feels safer yeah do you care now if people like you so if someone on twitter doesn't like you or says something mean does that affect you yeah yeah it does i'm so lucky that so far the only people who say weird things on the internet are like you know weird men who feel very threatened by what i'm saying and it hurts but i can laugh about it and i can really accept that this is part of the course when women are mean that's like killer and trying to be like I just want to be liked it's sort of weirder than that for me it's like I just want to be safe yeah that is what it feels like so it's like I don't mind if you

don't like me but I just want to make sure you're not going to like try and hurt me or like try and ruin my career or ruin my life or so yeah it comes from that sort of place but I am lucky people are so nice to me on the internet and when they're not often I'm just like cool you're just doing sort of free content for me in a way because you're saying about what I'm wearing or being really really sexist on my picture is illustrating my point so thank you so you didn't get into drama school and as you said you formed a band and your second failure is your failure at quotation marks making it in music tell us about that well this is what I'm still struggling with all the time like I've still not had a poster on the tube I'm like that hurts I don't know like it's weird it hurts it's this in a bit it's comparison culture and in the music industry of like why not me that

it's consistently felt like that and when I was in a band it was so much worse because I was in a band with people that didn't give a shit about that so I felt embarrassed that's the best word for it that I'm studying every night singing these stupid songs and doing these videos and trying to get my point across and I would watch you know obsessively watch other artists just make it and me not I mean I'm even embarrassed to say that don't be I've had exactly the same thing and it's human and it's like this shame about like why do it at all which I can now definitely say is like the worst angle I've ever put on it because what I see now is if you have to make art you have to make it that is the point and and everything else isn't

the point it was just such an easy way to piggyback onto what are my insecurities anyway which were like is it because I'm northern is it because I'm not skinny is it because I'm not like good but I've always been like but I'm sure I am I'm sure I am good so I it was just like a very tangible demonstration of like not being cool enough and I already worried about that anyway and it's still like that honestly I'm going to the Brits in a week and I'll feel weird and I'll feel like oh god I wish I was thinner and I wish I was younger and I'm ready to feel like that because it's really cool that I'm neither of those things it really really is because you stand for like millions of women like me like us who are this sort of silent majority a lot of the time I've asked myself a lot of questions, obviously, through the course of this podcast about what success is and

why certain people seem to get it. And I think that, and this all is caveated by the fact that you are very successful and very beloved, but in my mind, you should be globally famous and equivalent to a combination of Beyonce and Michelle Obama. That's where I'm at with you. So why don't you have that portion? And I think I come down to this patriarchal idea of successful women being finite and scarce. And so we're all subconsciously raised, and some of us are better at withstanding it, but we're all subconsciously raised and some of us are better at withstanding it but we're all subconsciously raised to think that we've got to compete for a small part of this mythical success and then we internalize that and then it becomes personal by personality and I just I don't know what the

solution is because you also need that competitive drive and that artistic drive to create for its own sake. But it can feel very lonely and miserable when you see other people who you don't think deserve it get what should be yours. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's no question there. I just, what do you think? It like, on good days now, and they are more frequent than ever,

it's like truly everyone deserves to make whatever they want and I don't look at other people and go oh I'm better than that why aren't I there I really don't it does seem scarcer and harder I think there's something to do with the fact that we're meant to like pack it all in at 26 and have babies you know is involved and we have less time than men in general and then I look at women pop stars and stuff and I go well I've got less time than them because I've got less money to keep preserving the my face and body in the way they have it's like this horrible just stupid actually competition for a small amount of space which isn't true and that's what really opened my

brain up just before making prioritized pleasure which isn't true. And that's what really opened my brain up just before making Prioritized Pleasure, which is why it's hilarious. It's done well for me, because I really did go a true amount of like, my life is nice. I get to make music full time. I made my life a lot smaller. So my, you know, financially, I didn't need too much. And I just made my lot with it and was like, you're an artist for a living. Can you stop being such a whiny little bitch about it and wanting more? And real acceptance that like I had this, I was lucky and I'd worked hard for it. And here it was. That's what I do for a living.

And so all the success since that is everything I wanted. I used to be like, I want to go on Jules Holland. I want to get nominated for an award. I did want a tube poster and I like what was the other one I want this one other thing that just I saw everybody I'd ever met do apart from me and you know we got most of them but I only got them after stopping caring about it well I don't know if I deep down stopped caring my therapist really like, we work in a logic based system. Yeah. Like the logic made sense to me. It was like, I am successful and I'm living my dream, which is

art full time. So that's stop it. You know, and I could really, I really clung onto that for ages. And that's the place I was making the record from in a way. Now all this, it's creeping back in. I'm like, like a designer didn't't want to like I want to wear this dress for their prints and they said no this designer and I was like well it's because I'm fat isn't it straight away I go there I'm like oh it's because I'm not from loads of you know aristocracy just like did it all comes back in all that bullshit if I open the door a tiny bit it floods in so yeah I mean daft just gotta shut the door and keep going I can't thank you enough being so honest about it and fuck that designer number one

poor stylist was like it's not that and I was like well it is secondly we're gonna get you that cheap poster I just obviously there's a cheap poster in your future there are emails actually going around about it now so imagine when that happens oh my I can't wait I can't wait and thirdly what your therapist said your dream of artful time what a beautiful beautiful thing that says everything and actually a therapist once said to me you need to maximize the you-ness of you. Like you're on this earth to be you. And your job on this earth is to ensure that you can be as you as possible. Yeah, yeah.

And in that respect, you're doing such a phenomenal job. Oh, God, Jay. When you look, like I'm open when I'm reclining or maybe when they're making the documentary because I've inevitably ate too much and had that heart attack but like how I've done it is so much cooler and so much yeah like cool is such a crap word but it's the only one I can really use for it it's like if I get no more successful now I've done it exactly as, I've done it exactly as myself. I've done it not starving myself. I've done it not being like some guy at a label's little pet project. There's not been much money pumped into it. I only work with one person. I don't have like tons of songwriters on,

you know, all of this. It's like fucking authentic. It really is. Even to get to this level without all the things that the people I look at and I'm jealous of have. I have no assistants. I've got a really good team of people and I am on a label that do put money into it. But there are bigger things at play to become a huge artist that everyone knows. And I don't have access to that. So to even to get to here and to have not really compromised much. I have a jolly time, barely ever do anything I don't want to do. Yeah.

And like I said, I like no one's been like, you need to lose a few pounds that's a win that's such a big achievement and the word that comes to mind for me is integrity you've done it with integrity I know you've mentioned a couple of times that idea of body image and before I get on to your failure, I wanted to ask about the sexism you presumably must have experienced within the music industry in your 20s. What was that like and how rampant was it? I mean, I was lucky. The band I was in, no one was doing about what I looked like or anything. There was no sexism and I was managed by people who didn't, never sort of made it a thing, but just society and the industry as a whole. It was like, you know, I had a really bad,

awful, awful, classic narcissistic, abusive boyfriend in 2012, the Olympics. Every time there's an Olympics, I'm like, but yeah, really, really bad, awful bastard. And I lost so much weight i developed a lovely classic borderline eating disorder i was tiny and hysterical and that's the most successful we were the most photo shoots we got the most free shit got sent to me the most opportunities i'd had at that point whether it was a coincidence i't know, but it was a damaging coincidence because I have since always, and it just is, I think like it's a whole other

podcast to talk about the way that society as a whole is quite horrendous in terms of body image for women. And I know it is for men, but it really is for women. And there's less places to hide for women and just this sort of currency, guess I'm experiencing it now I really am experiencing it now even though I've really set my stall out in the way I have a photographer yesterday was like your knees they look gestured a sort of wide gesture your knees yeah yeah I mean I do have quite wide knees but I I was like yeah he was a bit of a relic the fellow yesterday but I was like oh cool it's so alive and well and we are not as progressive at all as we think we are that's just how it goes for now and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing I think it can be toxic the other way I don't want

to be like love yourself exactly how you are because that can hurt and that's hard and all I can do is do what works for me which is I'm proud of myself and I embrace my shape and I really love eating and drinking what I want but I also acknowledge my predisposition to be insecure about it and I watch the industry with a bit of a keen eye to see how much it actually is changing yeah well all I can say is that you are the epitome of a flesh and blood goddess like you are thank you Bridget Bardot you yes good because I I know it doesn't help necessarily feeding into the thing that you're insecure about by paying you a compliment it's almost part of the problem but I also just want to do it because I also just want you to know that that I'm objective yeah but then I do you know I do shoots and so much don't fit and I'm like so what I know listen

I know because I feel the same but who was it who decreed that a woman had to define herself according to random numbers plucked from the sky and it's almost like I felt I went through years of thinking I still have to be the same size as I was as a kind of prepubescent teen I have to be that size and if I didn't fit into that size I felt like such a failure and then I just started buying the size up and I was like oh it's I love to do that it's so nice when you like order something online and it fits because you've actually ordered the size. Yeah, that's what fits you rather than the other way around. God, like I said, it's a whole other podcast because I am I'm still formulating what I think about it.

Because this whole campaign, you know, the amount of pictures there are out of me, every single one of my heart sunk a bit. And then I wait a bit and then I accept it. I am going through it in terms of what I think about what I look like how important that is but then I'm also absolutely fucking not going through it I don't care fuck you you're gonna have to look at me whatever I look like because why should I have to do that those two like ideologies run in tandem all day every day with me and I don't know let's you know let's do this again in a few years and see where I'm at with it it's ongoing but I hate talking about it in a way because it feels pretty basic I also think it's quite interesting to talk about because I think

a lot of people don't understand how intensely this is a daily living running thought process for you know so many people so many women like it just is me my buddy my bestie we just all day every day talk about it and we flip-flop between like oh wish I could look like this and then no fucking we're beautiful just go round and round I'm like god what are we are we positive today or are we going to be dickheads? Let's find out. That's so true and so relatable. Let's get on to your final failure because you touched on it there. Your final failure is that you failed

at happy ever after in relationships. Why did you choose this? Oh God, again, we need another hour, love. I mean, it's gone really hand in hand with my 20s being tough and all the rest of it and me not understanding what's wrong with me and blah blah blah everyone who i was around was in a stable long-term relationship same at high school all my i had like six girlfriends and they all had long term for you know how long you've been alive a year a two year three year boyfriends

I never had it never had it now I understand why I didn't but only just so at like 32 maybe I understood why none of my relationships have worked why I'm not like a traditional relationship person but all those years not understanding I mean I'm happily married parents happily married cousins all of it I was just unfortunately, I just never met anybody else that was going to have the journey I have, which is like, I don't need it. And I fall in love a lot and I love a lot of people and I really don't need boyfriends or girlfriends with the normal boundaries and rules.

I'm not saying I'm polyamorous, but I sort of smell what they're stepping in with it. I kind like want to get it a bit and god this is bad I just of course none of it ever worked everyone I ever went out with was to try and be the answer to what was up with me how many people do that without realizing that like of course that's never going to be how to do it and I think it's different levels of willful blindness yeah if you do do it or it's real love and it's great but like if you struggle mentally in the way that I did and you try to have some happy ever after I think it's dangerous but I think we were sold it by society still, religion, all the rest of it. And the only happiness I've found is to admit that happy ever after won't look like what I thought it would for me. And that's all right.

And how did you think it would look? Did you think it would look very conventional, marriage, children, terraced house? Gotcha. And also, that sounds nice still to me, but I wouldn't be able to do it without like a real understanding with that person that this doesn't mean everything stops now for me and my growth and who I am. And I'm not talking about like chagging other people. It really isn't that. It's more just like when I'm in a relationship, I go so wildly into it and shape shift so chronically that it's a detriment to the rest of my life. I've never had a balance whereas now the person I am with now it's such a who's been married and divorced

and you know has been fucking through it too it's like we are on the planet at the same time in sort of the same place wanting the same sort of things which it turns out is like watching BBC crime dramas and Deliveroo and that's fine for now and there's this lack of expectation and what nextness is you know one of the first times I've been able to be like oh I'm into this I'm capable of this I know so many women I was one of them very very recently like updating your thumbs off especially in London it's gross it's horrible and it's like obsessive like desire to be completed by another person just really really really bad for you and I also don't believe it's true and that's also my little mission is to so many women it was like over 35 that are absolutely shit in their pants that they need a boyfriend or it's game over and I just can't bear it I can't

bear it that you're made to feel like you've not succeeded in womanhood if you don't have a kid and have a husband I yeah it's just so unfair and maybe you know maybe I'll have those I don't I don't think I'd get married but maybe I'd have a kid but it has to be for me and not for like oh society's gonna accept me more or my mom will be happy about it it can't be for that she's not done that by the way but you know like in my head I'm like oh that's the one thing that she'd love it just can't be because then I'd be that poor kid you know do you think that part of the reason your earlier relationships didn't work out was not only this wrong-headed idea of completion by the way Jerryerry mcguire has so much to answer for on that front

but also my experience was as you say i was a relentless shapeshifter in relationships i was always trying to be the person that i thought they wanted and people please essentially and so i was never really myself and actually i didn't really know who I was so do you feel like you weren't being loved as you because you felt too scared to be you does that make sense yeah I've had sort of five I guess major relationships it was like ping pong one was loved me so much so much for who I was that it made me sort of lazy and complacent and at them the olympics guy was truly a classic textbook emotional abuser you know and it's something in that made me unbelievably like strict and like i will succeed in not being dumped and uh you know which is what they do they conjure that out of you you know so i was really burnt by that because i didn't have any nice balanced genuine like affectionate relationships for such a long time after that my most successful

relationship um the happiest but we were also like not ready to get quite go there because of me because of my career always came first and all the rest of it and she needed to do her life and there's all these things and it's like I think we'll be compatible with a lot of people for a long time, over and over. And it really is about where you are and what you need. Those one fueled me to just people please or shapeshift or be or try, rather than just experience being in a relationship. It was like, I've got to force it into being this one thing and love ever after because if I don't time's running out and you do you get treated better when you bring someone to the thing especially my old band it was like we do these big gigs you know big London gigs and

everyone would be there with their girlfriends and I'd it was a happier night if I was like this is so-and-so who you can chat to, who's probably great. You know, I felt more adult. But what actually, none of it was right. But all of it is, you know, I really sort of love a lot of people I've been with in my life. And I've got almost like a nice relationship with most people. And I see now and I do this whole spiel, which is like love doesn't have to stop. And you can love, it doesn't have to be romantic. And you romantic and you can you know all of it I just look at everything everyone that comes through my life and I spend any time with and I feel love for is as valid as someone I call my boyfriend or

my girlfriend that's so beautiful and profound couple more questions for you and then I'll let you get about your day and watch those BBC crime dramas and orders and delivery. Oh, bliss. You're 35 and in an industry that fetishises youth, indeed in a society that fetishises youth, although hopefully that's changing. How do you feel about age? Well, I am aware that it's the final frontier for me. I get really obsessed with stuff. I was obsessed with, no, this is wrong and I'm going to go on about it until it changes. And this is the

big one, you know, and this is the one I haven't really had to be bothered with yet. But I feel like I intend on changing how we end up feeling about it for myself and then hopefully for other people. But I am aware it's going to be really hard so far all I'm at is like the thing that we honestly as a society are so full of shame about is aging especially as women we're like mortified of aging but it's absolutely the only thing that's definitely going to happen and so that's where I'm coming from in a minute I'm like the logic of that focus on the logic of that and we're gonna go from there I turn up to shoots and I think oh my god I was sat in a bath with a mad hat on you know gloves and these stupid things fashion going and I was like I'm 40 years old what am I doing that's how I feel sometimes but then

my plan is to not say that also I'm joking I am 35 but like you know I mean like nothing is stupid and crazy my plan is to just really authentically what do I want and what do I like and how do I feel and not put an age joke on it or try to even acknowledge it really that's how I that's a long answer no it's a good but I'm aware it's it's going to be hard they're like fuckable what you know thing like the way that we are just not hot anymore I refuse that one so do I I've decided that as well and that'm like, who, again, who decided? Because actually my personal experience is that women are incredibly fuckable into their late age. I mean, not that I've done so personally, but that was told to us and we've all internalized it.

And I'm actually glad that I live in this age where there are so many examples of women in all of their magnificent diversity but there is it's a long road ahead you're right you're right I'm on it don't worry good thank you I can leave it to you yeah you know I do like a lot of choreography and stuff like that and I it's getting harder and harder to learn it I have these waves of like like, feeling so stupid. But then I sort of welcome those waves and go, but why do you feel stupid? Let's think about this. And I think feel stupid because it's been sold to us

that, like, women shouldn't be dancing if they're not in their 20s. Right, number one, that's crazy. Right, number two. Like, it'll never be second nature for me. All of this will never be second nature for me. But the more I can stop and think and probe it and hope you know probably make work out of it and I don't know why I feel like the need to be the person that has to change shit sorry I don't feel the need to but like it spurs me on to yeah I could be and yeah here we are

the thread that links all this together is that you're saying to ask questions. So when you have an automatic response, ask yourself a question as to whether that's actually really what you want and feel, and then work out what you really want and feel and prioritise that is essentially your message, which is a really good one, because it doesn't deny the fact that we are all imperfect and that we have these feelings that we feel such shame over. that we are all imperfect and that we have these feelings that we feel such shame over. And the fact that you're brave enough to speak about it, it's just such a relief for the rest of us. So thank you for having that impulse. And I suppose I wanted to ask you finally, how have other people responded to your success? People you know? Mostly lovely. And if you know me and you love me you're very glad thank fuck this is over because I don't think you could handle much more of me going on about it the more I can bring people along with me in it the most exciting thing for me is like the more successful I am stuff like my choreographer who gets like he's amazing and he gets pretty sort of down about the industry

sometimes and I'm like if I'm getting these big opportunities you will and you know like and I'm not saying that because I'm like such a nice person but for the most part people are really happy because they love me but they're also really happy because mostly the people I surround myself with are doing something adjacent that like we can do this together I've had a bit of uh got a lot of the old apologies. Right, right. A lot of like little shitbag blokes it is, by the way, all men. Yeah, I've had a fair few like, hey, just wanted to say, I'm really sorry about what happened. I'm like, I wonder why you're, I wonder why you suddenly decided to say that. Is it because you can't put sex music anymore on?

No. But mostly I have no time to ever see anyone socially anymore so i think people are feeling the void of like me not getting the drinks in staying like other than everyone else because i literally can't because i've got too much on but no yeah positive it's lovely and like i said the best bit of all of it for me is like the more opportunities the more stuff I can give to other people and bring people to and that's exciting yeah for me and I love to share it you know self-esteem Rebecca Lucy Taylor you are a joy we are so grateful for you I know that that tube poster is in your future and what I want people to do now who've been listening is to stop listening to this podcast and go immediately to listen to all of your music that's what I want people to do now who've been listening is to stop listening to this podcast

and go immediately to listen to all of your music that's what I'm going to do I find it so rousing so empowering but I also feel so seen and understood within your music and your words and I cannot thank you enough for coming on How To Fail. Thank you so much. It's been amazing. What a cool one. It's like a little dream come true as well. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode of How To Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe.

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