THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.241 - CMAT

Episode Date: April 5, 2025

Adam talks with Irish singer-songwriter CMAT, about modern gig etiquette, being a young weirdo, her conflicted relationship with the internet, the fury provoked by her Brit Awards bum-crack dress in 2024 and the advice Charli xcx gave her that changed her life. CMAT also performs two songs from her forthcoming album Euro-Country and in the outro, Helen and Olly from the recently returned Answer Me This podcast pick a couple of uplifting films.CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGEConversation recorded face-to-face in London on March 24th, 2025Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and conversation editing.Podcast illustration by Helen GreenPRE-ORDER 'I LOVE YOU, BYEEE' by Adam Buxton - 2025NORD VPNEXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee!PLEASE DONATE TO STAND UP 2 CANCERAre you able to spare £30, £20 or £10 to help advance life-saving cancer research?Text THIRTY, TWENTY or TEN to 70404 to donate to @SU2CUK.Text costs £30, £20 or £10 +1 standard rate txt. 16+, UK mobs only. Query? Call 0300 123 1022.Ts&Cs: channel4.com/terms ANSWER ME THIS PODCAST ADDRESS FOR [e-mail] ANSWER ME THIS QUESTIONS ARCHIVERELATED LINKSCMAT WEBSITECMAT ON CHANGES PODCAST WITH ANNIE MAC - 2024 (ACAST)CMAT - RUNNING/PLANNING (OFFICIAL VIDEO) - 2025 (YOUTUBE)CMAT - I WANNA BE A COWBOY, BABY (OFFICIAL VIDEO) - 2022 (YOUTUBE)CMATBABIESOFFICIAL (CMAT TIK TOK CHANNEL)CMAT - STAY FOR SOMETHING - GRAHAM NORTON SHOW - 2023 (YOUTUBE)JUDEE SIL - THE DONOR - 1973 (YOUTUBE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan! Hey, how are you doing, Podcats? It's Adam Buxton here. I'm reporting to you from a cold but very beautiful evening farm track out here in the Norfolk countryside towards

the beginning of April 2025. Beside me is my best dog friend Rosie. Oops, that was one of the bird-scaring guns which Rosie does not like and that has set her all a quiver. I'm sorry Rosie, don't worry though, it's going to be fine. Oh, she doesn't want to go any further because of the gun. I don't want to drag her along against her will but that is a shame because it's such a lovely evening. All right, I'll report back to you in one second. Hello I'm back. Rosie's at home

safe and sound. Sorry that she's not joining us for the whole walk. It's a shame because over the weekend we had a lovely walk to the pub and it was gun free and everyone was skipping and dancing and telling jokes, including Rosie. A lot of shaggy dog stories. How you doing anyway, podcats? Hope no one's setting off any loud explosions too close to you. I'm okay. I'm quite cold. I'm underdressed. I was fooled by the sun and the blue sky. Now look, before I tell you about my guest for this week's podcast, may I remind you once again that I am appearing on mainstream television this weekend as I speak, Sunday the 6th of April at 7 40 p.m. on channel 4. I'm on Bake Off, you'll have to tune in to discover how I did and there is a link in the

description for donations to Stand Up to Cancer in order to accelerate life-saving cancer research. If you're able to make a donation which you can do by text, it's very quick, I would be very grateful. And if you're feeling flush and keen to make an investment in your future happiness, why not pre-order my book. I Love You Bye is the name of the book. I know it sounds a little bit like I'm announcing my imminent demise, but no, I'm not. I'm wanging on about my ludicrous life a little bit more. Reminiscing about working with Joe on TV and on radio and podcasts in the 90s and thereafter.

Talking about my mum, my own family. You know the sort of thing. Link in the description to pre-order the book, which will be out on the 22nd of May, in physical or audio book form or both. I recommend both. Okay, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 241 which features a rambling conversation and musical performance from Irish singer songwriter Keira Mary Alice Thompson aka CMAT-MAT facts. I asked her if she preferred being called

Keira or C-MAT and she said in a showbiz context she prefers C-MAT so that's how I will refer to her. C-MAT was born in Dublin in 1996 after a childhood spent in the small communities of Clonnie and Dunboyne in County Meath, hope I'm pronouncing those correctly, CMAT moved back to Dublin to attend Trinity College and moved to Denmark for a little while. That part of her life, her late teens, college years, etc. was marked by an eating disorder and an addiction to painkillers that I don't think we touched on

in our conversation but I have heard her talking about it on another podcast Annie McManus's Changes. There's a link in the description, I thought it was a really interesting conversation but yes quite a different one from the one that I had with C-MAT. Anyway despite those struggles C-MAT remained focused and determined when it came to her songwriting ambitions. As you'll hear, one important piece of the puzzle in those early days was the advice she received from English artist Charlie XCX. But CMAT was also canny when it came to using the internet to get her songs noticed. Her debut single, Another Day, brackets KFC, was released in 2020. And a couple of years later her debut album was released, a

collection of country-inflected indie pop called If My Wife Knew I'd Be Dead. By that time, C-MAT had built up such a loyal following in Ireland that her debut entered the Irish album charts at number one, as did the follow-up, Crazy Mad for Me, released in 2023. In addition to Mercury Prize and Ivan Avello Award nominations over the last couple of years, C-MAT was nominated for International Artist of the Year at the 2024 Brit Awards. And though fellow nominee SZA ended up taking home the award, it was C-MAT who seized the headlines, thanks to her choice of outfit for the evening. I quote now from Grazia,

From the front there was nothing immediately shocking about the dress. Still, it was by no means your standard little black dress, with its ruched detailing and exaggerated puffy sleeves. But when the 28-year-old turned around it exposed another side of the dress, and, well, the singer. The back featured a huge backless panel from the neck down, the edges of the cutout lined with fluff and exposing the top half of C-mat's bum. Anyway, C-mat intended the dress to be just a bit of a lark and a playful gesture about fashion and female beauty standards but it was met in certain corners of the internet with, and this may surprise you, outrage bordering on craziness.

We spoke a little bit about that incident and other possibly more weighty topics in our conversation which was recorded just a few weeks ago in March 2025. C-mat also performed a couple of songs from her third album Euro Country, due to be released later this year. Oh and by the way this episode features strong language including the old C word and I don't mean C-mat. I'll be back at the end with a bit more waffle and a couple of uplifting movie picks from two highly esteemed figures from the podcasting world but right now with C-mat. Here we go. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat Yes, yes, yes La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la You haven't read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, have you?

I haven't. Are you aware of that book? No. I think it came out a couple of years ago. And it's all about just the epidemic of poor mental health for Generation Z and linking it to the use of smartphones and social media. Yeah. In a way that is controversial, I think, for some people.

I've read a few reviews where they say, well, a lot of this evidence is correlative rather than causative, but it's hard to deny there is some connection. Oh, 100 billion percent. I think about it all the fucking time. I mean, I think that, I mean, this is a pretty crazy thing. And I was talking about it yesterday. I think that the scroll, the scroll, the scroll is, and this is, this is quite a testy thing to say, but I think that the scroll, not porn, but the scroll is eliminating like horniness and lust and like animal instinct from the younger generation

because I don't know if you're aware but there's a huge rise in like sexual conservatism amongst like people under 25. Like a really good example was like Bad Bunny, the musician, has just like had billboards all over New York of him in a tiny, tiny pair of Calvin Klein underwear. And it's extremely explicit and like, you know, oh, like little sexy time. And there's like teenage girls going on TikTok and filming videos of themselves doing think pieces about why that's not appropriate and why it's not okay and why it's icky. And they're just like, what? Like he's just, he's in a fucking underwear. I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. Like he's just having a little

horny time that's the whole point but I think that the constant attention and the constant like your brain does not ever get room to think or to be longing or to be yearning or to kind of ruminate over anything so you've eliminated a pretty big and important like animal instinct from your psyche, which I think can turn into depression. And there's just a lack of like palpability, cultural wise, because people aren't going out and doing things so much that doesn't have an explicit set of rules. Yeah.

I feel weird about the fact that live music now is like more popular than it's ever been. And people in England, Ireland and Central Europe are spending more money and spending more time going to live musical concerts than they ever have because there's an explicit set of rules. If you go to a concert, doors open at one point, then there's a support act, then there's a main event, and you drink a certain amount of beers,

and then you go home. And it's like really like, you can go by yourself and there's a very explicit set of rules to do this, but you can still on some level feel like you're having a real experience, which is nice and all. But then you should go also to the club where there's no set of rules and you go in and you have to just figure it out for yourself

and you talk to other people. I worry about the fact that people at gigs don't talk to each other. And I feel like people used to meet up at gigs and like hang around outside for ages and ages and like chat to each other and like have all this kind of thing. I mean I try to promote that with my like fans. I'm like, is everyone hanging out? Is everyone talking to each other? Like let's get together. Like don't just be going with your friends watching the show and then

leaving again without like talking to anyone around you or interacting with anyone around you. Right. I haven't been to a lot of shows recently but the last one I went to was in the Palladium, the London Palladium. So that's a different kind of show because that's a seated venue. And there was a bit of friction between some of the middle-aged guys there. It was a very middle-aged guy gig. What was the gig? It was Frank Black. Yeah, checks out. Lead singer of the Pixies, although he was playing his album Teenager of the Year, solo album, second album, my favorite record of all time, I think.

Really? Yeah. Big statement. Do you know that record? No, I don't know that record at all. It's really good. You know, you were, we were talking before about Sparks, and you were saying how much you love them. I love them too. But you were talking about a certain kind of art rock when it gets a bit too arch,

the soul goes out of it a little bit and you're just left with the nuttiness and the experimentation. The balls. Yeah. And what you want is, you want, well I'm sort of assuming this is what you want, is like experimental, crazy artiness,

but also some real heart in there and some great tunes and something that'll stick with you. That's what Teenager of the Year is. Wow. It's more that, I think, than Pixies albums even. I'm going to add that to my title. It's so good. If you like Sparks, I would be surprised if you didn't like it. I look surprised. I also do like Pixies, I should say, because I did go to see Pixies last year and I knew all the words to every song.

Right. But I I'm so well versed on music and indie music that to say that Pixies are like my favorite band, they're pretty low down the list because the people who are high up the list, I'm absolutely fucking nut job about. You know, that kind of way. Sure. But I do I do like Pixies. Anyway, we were at the Palladium watching Frank Black play Teenage of the Year with the original lineup all the white-haired old blokes on stage and then all the

white-haired old blokes watching him. Actually there was a younger contingent of sort of blokes approaching middle-age but it was pretty beer-y and the music is it gets it gets pretty rocky, let me tell you, and you do want to stand up and you do want to jump around, but on the other hand, I was very happy sitting down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had a nice seat and I wasn't drinking that night and I was thinking, this is fun. I'm not drinking, I don't need to go to the loo every 10 minutes.

I'm just enjoying it in my comfortable seat. I've got a good view. The sound is just right, not too loud. But then everyone got overexcited. The guy in front of me started standing up, throwing shapes. I think he was maybe taking drugs and he kept on going off to have more drugs

and then coming back and throwing more elaborate shapes. The guy behind me started getting pissed off with him and throwing cups at the guy's head. Oh, no See you all have to make friends you have to live together guys It was all kicking off at the Frank Black show and then in the last 20 minutes or something It was just anarchy. There were whole sections standing up people behind them getting pissed off No one really knew what to do because it's like well this kind of feels like a standing-up show but everyone's supposed to be seated and then at first there were attendants going around going can you sit down can

you sit down can you sit down can you put your phone away put your phone away put your phone away because you're not supposed to film. Yeah. But by the end it was just joyful indianarchy. That sounds absolutely amazing and makes me really happy to hear. It was very good. Do you feel, though, that people behave differently? Have you noticed people behaving differently at gigs since you've been playing? It's there's like a really notable and like people talk about this a lot in the indie music scene.

The Gen Z's don't know how to act at a gig. They just don't. Like I was supporting Sam Fender around Europe just there. And there was, at a couple shows, I was playing my support show slot. And there was people quite far up in the queue that were sitting on the floor and like watching things on their phone

because they were just waiting for Sam to come on. I saw that at like one show to be fair, but that is a very famous thing that like people will be hoarding the barrier row, but they will not watch the support act because they need to put their headphones in and have a scroll beforehand. And there's like a really big trend of Gen Z

and younger teenagers being a little bit, I don't want to say inappropriate, but just not aware of people around them, because this is the thing is like the community and the living amongst each other, people is like more of a foreign concept to the younger generation. Because of the phones. Mitzky, the artist, stopped touring for a while because she would get on stage and she's a very young fan base and they would just scream, Mommy! Mommy! Fuck me, Mommy!

Salame! Which is all well and good. It's fun every so often, but they're doing it the whole time and she can't hear herself and she can't play live. And she also, I think she in particular found it uncomfortable. She wasn't comfortable with that kind of behaviour. Me personally, I love that shit. I don't care. I'm like, yeah, let's go, mommy, daddy, let's whatever. Shout whatever you want at me, I'm good. But she wasn't comfortable with it. So she took herself out for a while. And then she came back

with a show that I saw last year. I actually saw it twice last year. She basically reworked all of her music to be like slow, sad, country jam. And the band is at the back of this like plinth and she's doing like choreography. She's doing this like set piece choreography. So the show is exactly the same every night.

And it is completely devoid of any audience interaction and you have to sit down. They were all seated shows, all sitting. So she's like, if I'm going to tour, I need to create an environment where no one is shouting at me or getting wild or getting raucous, because when they do, they make it sexual. And then I become very uncomfortable. All of this is totally understandable.

But it's sad that she's had to kind of do that in order to get people to behave. Yeah. And that is it is just a thing. Like there is just people that don't know. I think, I think like, because of the phone, because of the phone and you're looking at yourself. Let's just blame the phone for everything. You're looking at the phone and you're looking at yourself in the phone all the time. These young people are very, very, very self-aware. They cannot let go. They cannot get loose. They do not really do drugs. They do not really get drunk because they're too scared of losing control in a public setting because they think everyone's watching them all the time and filming them all the time because they are. And so it's a weird, it makes me really sad.

So I love to hear of a show like The Frank Black Show where people are just going nuts. That's yeah. I want people to go nuts. It's the old gen X's. They still can remember a time where you went to a club and staggered around and bumped into people and sloshed beer over each other and shouted and screamed. I mean, that was fabulous. It was fabulous in a way, but I have to be honest and say that I really did enjoy the sitting down. That was pretty nice. But I was thinking, I went to a funeral a couple of years ago around a time when I was thinking I went to a funeral a couple of years ago around a time when I was thinking a lot about social media and I had friends having a difficult time on social media and going slightly crazy with it.

So it was in my head when I went to this funeral and the priest read out the love chapter from Corinthians are you Bible person? I'm actually not a Bible person. I was really Catholic growing up, but my mum and dad weren't Bible bashee, really. And everything was Aus Gaelga as well, because we went to an Irish language church. So I don't really remember a lot like that. I mean, I am not a Bible person, but I was familiar with this. It's an absolute banger from St. Paul's Corinthians 13. Class. And it is him talking about love and the importance of love. And

every time the priest said the word love, I was thinking social media. And how would Corinthians 13 sound if you replace the word love with the word social media. So the real version is love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Right. So I was thinking, whoa. So social media is that, but exactly the opposite.

Exactly the opposite. Exactly the opposite. It is not patient, it is not kind, it does not rejoice. It does not, yeah. Arrogant, rude. And it's all about just like focusing on and maximizing the absolute worst of what human beings are capable of. Yeah. I mean I'm sure there's some nice bits as well. I don't want to rag entirely on social media because I am born of it. Like I started using

Twitter every day when I was like 14 years old. I had a tumblr and everything and I was on the internet every day because I was a kid that grew up in a village where no one really liked me because I was really fucking weird and I didn't really have anything by the way friends and like my family weren't particularly nice to me that time like my two sisters were like you're a fucking freak. Were you the youngest? No I was like the middle so I have two older sisters and then I have a little brother and I did just, I did get a hard time for them when I was a teenager but I was weird. Fair enough. And I got, I got... What was weird about you? So my first day of secondary school in Dunboyne County Meads, I had been thinking in my head about

the fact that I was starting secondary school and it was going to be this big moment for me. And then it was going to be a character building defining moment. So I spent weeks ahead printing off black and white pictures of film actresses from the 1940s because I used to have a little film diary and one of the free channels on our telly was Turner Classic Movies. So I used to watch them all and then write down a list of what I had watched because I was really pretentious. I thought that made me feel I think that does make you cool. I think it did make me cool. But also I was really pretentious for someone that came from a fucking village where like everyone plays Ga and no one else is really doing that kind of thing.

Anyway, I go into school and I'm wearing a bump in my hair, which is a piece of plastic that you put a beehive over basically. So I have a beehive. I have fake lashes and I have like- And you're 14? No, I'm 12. Oh, you're 12?

No, I'm 12. And I swagger in and like, we get lockers and I've been like in America, on the telly, when you get lockers, you put pictures up inside it. So I'm gonna do that and then everyone will know I'm cool so I'm like putting all these pictures up inside my locker and this guy comes over and he's like what you doing? I was like hi so nice to meet you my name's Kier Thompson I'm actually just putting up pictures of 1940s film actresses inside my locker because I

just want to be inspired by them every day. And he was like, are you Roisin Thompson's sister? And I was like, yeah, I am. And then he like stood up and the hall was like very full of kids. And he like stood up and turned around and like announced the whole hall. And I'm not going to say the slur, but he did use a slur. And he essentially went, here lads, Roisin Thompson's sister is a lesbian. And then I was ruined. For like two years I was ruined.

And then after that it was fine. Kind of everyone just was like, yeah, that's Kiera Thompson. But it was like day one, day one I got marked. Was that just a terrible, terrible day? Did you go home and just think, how's this gonna work? Yeah, I think I was like, oh, I thought people were going to admire me because I'm a genius.

Was there anyone, did you have any allies at all? Teachers, teachers loved me. My geography teacher, Miss Woolhead, loved me. She thought I was a little weirdo. I had a really lovely art teacher. My music teacher, very important person, Pat Morris. I had her for all six years of secondary school and she, when I was 13, was like, Elanna, which is like my love in Irish kind of, Elanna, Elanna, Elanna. You need to listen to

Dori Previn. And she gave me all this freak folk CDs when I was 13. And I was like, what is this? This isn't The Beatles. She loved the McGaragall sisters as well. And it was through all this freak folk CDs when I was 13. And I was like, what is this? This isn't The Beatles. She loved the McGaragall sisters as well. And it was through all this kind of freak folk that she knew about that I ended up discovering Judy Sil when I was like 16. And that, that was it. I have a big tattoo of Judy Sil on my arm. I have like a portrait of Judy Sil on my arm here.

She like changed my life single-handedly. Like that was, heard that music when I was 16 through a really shitty download off of YouTube. I think the first song I ever heard, I know the first song I ever heard was The Doner and I listened to it on my laptop in my bedroom and I was like. How does that one go?

Yeah, I'll chase them to the bottom till I finally got them dreams fall deep. It's the one, Kyrie Ele a liaison and it's like eight minutes long. And it has like a 60 piece like tape choir. I love Judy so, so much. She really, really spoke to me immediately. Is she still around? No, she was absolutely dead as a door now. My favorite genre of anything is 1970s, 1980s woman, musician or director who made one or two

things in her life and then was crushed by the world of sexism. Judy Seale is an example of that. She made two records and she was like an addict as well. And she she really, really, really pissed off David Geffen and then he buried her career and Kind of rightfully so I think she like was a bit homophobic But she was also bisexual herself and she was she sounds like I've spoken to Bob Harris better a lot because I know I've made it my mission when I moved to London to make friends with Bob Harris whispering Bob whispering Bob I made friends Bob Harris as soon as I fucking and he's whispered to you about Judy Sill? Yeah, we talk about Judy a lot. Did he know her?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because she did loads of sessions on Grey Whistle Test and not all of them still exist, but the only footage I think we have of Judy is on the old Grey Whistle Test. And we had her over loads and she did like a really big session for the BBC. That's like one of her most famous kind of like anthologies. But yeah, he was like, she wasn't pleasant. Oh, OK. And I was like, no, she wouldn't have been. She wouldn't have been because that music was like that. It was absolutely like it's kind of the same song over and over again for the two

albums, which is her begging God for mercy and forgiveness for being such a terrible cunt, which is basically all of my music as well, all the time. And I don't know if it's that I listened to Judy Silvan then started down that path or if it's that I listened to Judy Silvan was like, Oh, this woman is me and then continue to do the same thing. But is that the way you think about yourself? A little bit, a little bit. Really? Yeah, I'm pretty like, I'm older now so I have that thing where I have that baseline instinct of everyone in this room hates me and I'm a loud obnoxious cunt and everyone hates me and then it's sandwiched with I'm a

genius and everyone should love and respect me because I'm so talented and then on top of that is stop thinking all these things about yourself all the time and just be nice and normal. That sounds like a fairly standard artist profile. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, so in my in my dark moments, which is where the music comes from, I'm like, I'm a cunt and I need help to not be a cunt. That's a lot of this is on my new record, particularly on a song called the Jamie Oliver petrol station. Wow. Yeah. Tell me about the Jamie Oliver petrol station. So the Jamie Oliver petrol station is a song on surface level. It is a diss track about Jamie Oliver because what's Jamie done?

I don't know. I don't know. It's such a thing of like, you know, you pick a celebrity and you're like, oh, I hate them for no reason. He's someone that winds people up. But I would say, in the scheme of things, he's trying to do his best. Yeah, no, 100%. So on the surface, it reads as a diss track of Jamie Oliver, because every time I see him, he kind of annoys me. And I was touring extensively. I have been touring extensively for the last three years and there's all these Jamie Oliver branded shell delis. Oh yeah. So you pull into a petrol station and there's a big poster of Jamie Oliver there and I was just like, fucking hell, not another Jamie Oliver petrol station,

that guy. And the whole point of the song is that I'm like, actually my annoyance and tolerance and hatred of other people serves absolutely no purpose in my life and is a really bad instinct that I have that I need to try and get rid of because it's turning me into a cunt and I need to try and... So it's actually a love song by Jamie Oliver if you think about it. It's me being like, don't be a fucking bitch and like just stop judging people for like annoyances. You are not going to play Jamie Oliver Petrol Station. No I'm not.

But will you play something from the new album? I will. I'll play a song called Running and Planning. Okay beautiful. If it sounds good. What is Running and Planning about? I was at the end of a relationship where I realized that I was in it because it was the thing to do as opposed to actually being in romantic love and like having this thing that serves me like spiritually and emotionally I was like doing it because it's the thing to do. And that that in general is a thing that I see amongst my peers and friends. How do you mean it's the thing to do?

Because we're told that for security and emotional security and like everything, you get a partner. You just get a partner and then yeah, crack through life together. And then you get married and then you have your kids and it's all you're just kind of going with the flow of what everyone else around you is doing. But I was like, I think I'm always doing these things to feel more normal because I feel like such a freak all the time in my little head. And that this is also particularly women, like I just have friends that are in long term relationships that are like, oh, I'd love to move to New York. And I'd be like, why don't you move to New York? Oh, cause my fella's here.

I hear this so much, particularly now, cause 29 is that weird thing of like, you're in between the, are you going to continue being a piss head for the next 10 years? Or are you going to get married and like, get a real job and like do normal things? Me personally, I'm in the piss head route, but there's just, I just think there's a lot of

weird societal pressures and constraints. And a lot of the time you don't even realize it. I think a lot of my friends, I see them in like bad relationships or relationships that are not serving them in any way. They don't even realize, cause they're like, we're just doing the motions. We're going through the motions.

All right. Let's do it. Like we're just doing the motions. We're going through the motions Let's do it Call you my baby But it calls a line Call you my angel But you've caused some harm, and there's nothing to you

You're really not a man, you're just a vision, yeah Some girl once had, some girl in a bathroom practicing guitar YouTube tutorials only go so far She prayed to God in school for a perfect friend We look just like you, wonder when I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running, planning, yeah I'm on the underground, you're in the bath I'm legging after you, but you can't turn back or I turn to read again woven in the lamp that you're my goodbye for us if I take your hand then I'll make them dance for us, doing all

chewing Find it a girl to love who will cuddle do Oh, I keep on running, planning, running, planning Oh yeah, I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah. I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah. I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah. I keep on running, planning, yeah. planning it It runs along as is truth It runs along on a loop

Along the bottom of the news That I'm not good enough for you And I can't take care of anyone Cause all I have is smoking guns Therefore, I'm out, Diana's gone God bless my mouth and ginger mouth I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah I keep on running, planning, running, planning, oh yeah keep on running

planning, running, planning, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. Oh, good. I know I kind of briefly touched on it earlier on. I love this podcast. Oh, thank you so much. I've listened to the Kazuo Ishiguro episode like three times in my life. That was one of my favorites. It's so good.

It's so good. I mean, I love his book so much, but like, I just loved him. I loved him. I just found him so utterly endearing. And like, I loved how much of an artist he was. You know, some people that's just out and out. They're like, this is all I've been doing the whole time. And I loved the vulnerability of him being like,

I wanted to be a singer, but I couldn't be a singer. So I did something else. Think that was amazing. People do want to be singers. People do want to be singers. I do think it's a special magical thing. You know, I love filmmakers and I love painters and writers and all those people are great. But there's something so direct and magical about playing and singing.

Yeah. That is different. It just forms a kind of instant connection that doesn't really compare to anything else, I don't think. It's just such an old thing. Yeah, so ancient, like, and even now it feels ancient, I think. Seamats teeth, Seamats teeth. What's that sparkling on C Matt's teeth? C Matt, please tell me but keep it brief. What you got sparkling on your teeth?

It's an Aurora Borealis crystal that is stuck onto my tooth with the thing that you put braces on with. Okay. And it should not have lasted this long because this is the cheapest version of this kind of thing that you can do. And it's been on for about two and a half years and has become my trademark. So if it ever falls off, I have to immediately go and get it. So there's no orthodontic reason for that to be there. That's purely cosmetic.

Purely for the crack. Yeah. Purely for the good times. In fact, it comes with some crack. Yeah, I wish. And and then what do you have further back there? So I have another one in the middle that's a little tiny diamond. And then I have at the back a green love heart for Ireland. OK, because I love Ireland so much that I was like, yeah, a green love heart man, Ireland. And what's funny is obviously I got the YouTube comments there from the dads being like, she look look lovely you didn't have that shit on our

teeth I did this for you so that's where you're you're looking at YouTube comments are you yeah I would love to be like no I don't read the comments I totally do yeah I can't help myself but you weaned yourself off Twitter you're no longer on no longer on Twitter and I're no longer on. No longer on Twitter. And I'm no longer on TikTok because TikTok is where the bad people really came out. Like, really, I had an incident last year where I performed at the BBC Radio 1 big weekend and the BBC had to turn the comments off of any video of me, video, picture or whatever of me that they posted. Because one of the videos racked up 2000 comments in like four hours of people just calling me fat and hideous

and disgusting and gross looking and like who's this elephant on the fucking stage and this kind of language that they were using like vomit emojis and saying I look disgusting and she should go to prison and she's fat and ugly and I hope she dies and I was like cool. Who is that doing those comments? I don't know, I don't know. It's really difficult to pinpoint because it's the general population I guess. You can't like, you know, not everyone has been exposed to the many cultural references that I've been exposed to. Like not everyone is like, oh the B-52s are the best band in the world. Do you think those are people that have followed your career at all? No, no, this will be the first time they've come across me.

And they just don't like the look of you. That's what happens is someone who has come across me for the first time generally will have an immediate bad reaction if I'm not wearing enough clothes for them or if the clothes that I'm wearing are too weird or too revealing. Well, the other thing that I was going to say about your appearance was the bum crack at the Brits. Yeah, which also went down like a lead balloon on TikTok. But I kind of wanted it to because I thought that was cool. So was that before the BBC Big Weekend thing?

Yeah, it was. And what was annoying, I guess what's annoying about the BBC Radio One Big Weekend is I was just wearing clothes that other people were wearing, like other people were wearing that same amount of clothes. Lots of people like being nappies. Love, loved them, they were like white hot pants and I thought they looked cool. I guess with the Brit Awards though, we kind of knew. Like I knew we were going to get a rise out of people and I just had the idea and I thought it would be so funny. So me and Mia and the designer Sophie Lincoln worked on it

and I was touring. So there was like one night backstage in Brussels where my poor sister had to get on a Zoom call and do very specific measurements of my arse. Like I was not wearing any clothes. She was like measuring my bum in every way, shape and form. Because in order for that dress to work structurally, it required a lot of effort.

Sophie's an amazing, amazing seamstress. Because obviously when you wear clothes, the back is there to keep it up, especially on a dress, you know, you zip the back up and then it goes to the body. But in order for it to work the way that it worked, we had to do a lot of really specific measurements. And then I was covered actually, underneath that dress in duct tape. So I wasn't wearing underwear, obviously. So I was covered in duct tape, and then there was double sided sticky tape on the duct tape. And then we fleshed it to the dress and the body. And then that's how it kind of looked the way it looked. I still

think that's the best thing I ever did. But people hated that. And the idea in your head was, let's create an unconventional cleavage. Let's sort of troll the idea of a woman's front cleavage Yeah. by giving it a bit of back cleavage. Yeah. I didn't think it was gonna go as far as it did. I will say that.

I just thought we were gonna get on the Daily Mail We're Stressed list, and that would have been an honor. And I I was and I also was this year when I went to the Brits again. They put me on the Worst Stressed list so I was like class. Yeah I didn't think it was going to go as far as it was. People really, really don't like someone being confidently stupid. They really don't like it. Like someone doing something confidently that is in poor taste. I do think people find it hard when it's a woman still. Yeah, yeah, 100%. When a woman is being like loud and obnoxious and, you know, having fun and being giddy.

Do you, you know, because you've had, you've had your struggles with your mental health in the past, you've been up and down, you've been public about it, you've written about it. And do you worry about the pressures of life in the spotlight and the effect that that has when you were talking about those people trolling you before online after the BBC thing? Does that knock you back or are you able to rationalize it? That one's actually okay. When people fat shame me or whatever, which is just such a mental thing to do in general, but that one's actually so mad that it doesn't really bother me because I'm just like, it's just so abstracted from anything to do with me.

Like I can't take it personally because it has no bearing on me or who I am or what I do. It's just the way I look. Do you ever respond to any of those kinds of messages online? No, not directly. Just by being like, didn't realize it was illegal to have a fat ass boys. Like, you know, I'll do something like that, but no, never directly.

Cause I just don't really care about them interacting with me at all. But yeah, I am, I'm really looking forward to festival season because I love festival season. I love festivals. I feel like I'm a festival artist. I love the fact that my job has allowed me to go to every single festival in the UK and experience it intimately. Like that's cool, because I go to see bands every time I do a gig. Are you at end of the road? I was last year and it was my favourite, favourite show of last year. I loved it so much. I went to end of the road as a punter in 2021. I was playing solo on the Garden stage at 2pm on the Friday,

and that was in the era where I wasn't that busy. So I was like, sick. That means I can stay for free for the weekend and just be at the festival for the whole weekend. And that was amazing. I love End of the Road. I think End of the Road is so underrated as a festival. I think it's so amazing. But I'm really, I'm really looking forward to Festival season because I love it. And we've got a really, really big slot at Glastonbury this year. Oh, you're at Glastonbury. Oh you're at Glastonbury? I'm looking forward to that more than anything I've ever looked forward to in my life because the last time we did Glastonbury it was amazing. But yeah, I can't lie, like every time I release

an album I become more famous and it throws up more problems. But also good things. So who knows? And also at the end of the day I just kind of want to be able to keep having people give me money to write and record albums because I've done like three in a four-year space so clearly I just enjoy making albums. They do send me fucking west, they make me mental. The last one in particular kind of had to check in with my manager at one point to be like if I told people what was going on with me right now, I do have a fear I would get sectioned. He was like, yeah, maybe just keep an under wraps on the album. I was like, yeah,

I'll do. What was going on with you though? Hallucinations. Right. Yeah. Which I will talk about properly at some point, but essentially, long story short, I was, my frontal lobe was so occupied with how to make this the best album of all time constantly that I actually just started hallucinating things that weren't there, such as insects crawling on my skin. Oh, man. And I broke out in like stress hives. And then I went to the doctor and he was like, I thought there were insect bites. I was like, the insects are biting me.

And he's like, that's a stress rush and the insects are real. And I was like, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. And like auditory hallucinations and stuff like that, which I get quite bad. But that's from lack of sleep and like overstimulation and stuff as well. Because my job is constantly listening to music all the time. So then when there's silence, it just keeps going. What do you hear when you get auditory hallucinations? That's scary. There's like a man and he says the word stones over and over again sometimes.

Is it Mick Jagger? It's not, unfortunately, I wish it was. It's a Dublin accent and it's like stones like that and it will happen. And because I became aware of it, then if I'm falling asleep and I haven't eaten or slept properly, I'll be falling asleep and I'll just hear it a bit and I'm like, oh, shut up.

Oh man, was that scary the first time you heard that? I think this has always happened to me. I think I've always had auditory hallucinations and not been able to put a name to them or not realize that everyone else doesn't experience them. But, you know, I have to kind of take the David Lynch approach with these things, which is I really love songwriting.

I really love singing and I do it for my job. And there's kind of no way that I can be as good at it and enjoy it as much as I can without being programmed wrong in some way. Do you know what I mean? And then also songwriting is like a muscle that you have to flex. And the more songs I write faster and quicker, the better I've gotten at them because my albums, I think, have gotten just like better and better and better. And this record in particular, I think, is the best thing I've ever made.

But in order for me to get there, you have to keep flexing the songwriting muscle. And I'm sure that when you build up that muscle, the auditory hallucinations and the hallucinating muscles also get flexed and get brought up to the front and get worse and worse because you are living in your imagination the whole time and you're working your imagination so hard all of the time that it's just inevitable that you will get

these kinds of side effects. Okay. Yeah. So We're all in this together. What was the advice you got from Charlie XCX? So explain how you came to be in the quarter of Charlie XCX in the first place. So I was living in Manchester. I was working in TK Maxx and was also working as a sexy shots lady in the nightclubs of Deenskaye Castlefield. Love it. When was this? This would have been 2017 or 2018. I was like 21. I had moved over to the UK

to try and be a songwriter. I didn't want to be an artist at that time because I just fucking was miserable and I didn't think I could do it. But I knew I was a good songwriter. So I was like, I'm going to come over and I do writing sessions. I'm going to be a writer. I just had this whole thing. So, but I was living in Manchester because I couldn't afford London. She put up a thing on Instagram being like, I'm going to invite fans to come and listen to my unreleased music and give their opinions of them. So if you want to come write a review in my inbox of my unreleased leaked demos that you've definitely heard, like give me a review of my unreleased

leaked demos, which obviously I've heard every single one of them. So I wrote a review of the first song and then she immediately replied and was like, yeah, you're in, you seem like you know stuff about music. So it was like a fan event run by Spotify. And I was in the room with all these other super duper Charlie XCX fans, and I am a super duper Charlie XCX fan. I'm a lifer. I've been there since 2013.

I'm in this room and everyone is maybe younger than me or is an older gay man. And I'm like, cool, cool, cool. She's like, here's a song, what do you think of it? And everyone else in the room is kind of being like, yeah, I love it. It's like a funky vibe. Yeah, I love it, it's great.

And I'm like, I think the bridge on this one doesn't really work because it's not really giving us an intuitive transition into the chorus. And I also think maybe you should be starting on a concert. I'm doing the thing that I do. I mean, really, really specifically about songwriting. And at one point she plays a song and was like, I don't know if I should release this song or not because I don't know if it's very me.

And she plays the song. And I was like, don't release this song. It's not good. I was like, you're literally an innovator. Like you are famous for constantly pushing the envelope. Why would you release a song with this title and like these lyrics and stuff when it's like sounds like something you would made 60 years ago, and it's something that other people at this current moment in time are copying off of you from six years ago. What were the other people in the room doing when you were giving her these blasts? They were staring at me as if I was insane.

I wasn't blasting her. I was like I was if anything, I was trying to uplift her more as an artist. So I was trying to be like. No, I'm sure you were doing it charmingly. And she was I mean, it must have been. Hard to know. Hard to know. I was on a lot of drugs at the time. I was a bit of a mad one.

Recreational or psychiatric. Uh, recreational, not like, well, you could say psychiatric. No, I was smoking loads of weed and doing loads of coke at the time, all the time. Uh, so I was a bit of a nut job. Um, but she was able to see that you were a big fan. Yeah. And I think she fully copped it. Yeah.

And you also knew what you were talking about. Yeah. So she pulled me aside afterwards. So her managers were like, we want to hit. I was like, who cares? It's about the music. Oh, I see. I thought you were saying they wanted some of your drugs.

No, no, no. Well, I wouldn't have had any despair to be fair. I was quite broke at the time, but so she pulled me aside afterwards and was like, what are you doing? Like what's going on with you? And I was like, oh, I was quite broke at the time. But so she pulled me aside afterwards and was like, what are you doing? Like what's going on with you? And I was like, oh, I'm a songwriter, live in Manchester. And she was like, why are you living in Manchester?

And I was like, because I wanted to move to England, but I couldn't afford London, so I'm living in Manchester. She's like, but where are all your friends? Like who are you making music with? How can you be working hard enough if you don't have friends around you to like uplift you and like hold you to being a maker? And I was like, I don't know.

And she was like, right. So I think like either you need to bite the bullet and find it a way to move to London and be in the scene or maybe you should like go back to Dublin where your friends are and where you've made music with people before if that's something you can afford to do because really the only thing that matters

is that you're making stuff all the time. I think she was like, do you have a boyfriend here or something? And I was like, yeah. And she was like, well, just maybe consider moving back to Dublin. And I got on the mega bus back to Manchester and the whole time I was sitting there,

I was like, I have to break up with my boyfriend. I have to break up with my boyfriend and move back to Dublin, because Charlie XCX told me to. And I did, I literally did. Moved back to Dublin eventually. Moved to my mum and then moved back in with my nanny and granddad who I'd lived with for a lot of years before I moved to Manchester. And was doing this thing where I was like posting videos of myself writing and singing on YouTube every week, like once a week, like every Friday or something.

Are they still up there, those videos? No, they're down. They're in unlisted. They'll go up on something eventually, but I can't quite look at them because I'm crackers in them. I'm so mental and so miserable in them because I'm back living a home after trying to make it in England, but still think I'm doing the right thing. Anyway, I'm posting these.

They're getting maybe 400, 500 views. It's like the same people from Ireland are watching every week and being like, well done Queen, proud of you. And I'm like, thank you. And it was a nice time. Like people were being really nice. But it wasn't crossing over yet. Well, that's how my manager met me, my current manager. And he's the reason that Z-MAT exists. He's like single-handedly came in at that point and was like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm fixing coffee machines. And he was like, right, well, you need to be a musician. So I'm going to find you loads of money and you're going to go to New York

and you're going to record your first five songs. And then we're going to release them at the start of next year. So I went to New York and I recorded the first five songs. The first single was going to be a song called KFC, which is to be released on the 7th of March, 2020. Now, if we cast our minds back to the 7th of March, 2020, I was working as someone fixing coffee machines over the phone in an office.

And I went in to the office the week that I was supposed to release another day KFC and everybody was crying. And they're like, we all have to go home because of this disease. And we had filmed a music video and had it all ready to go and stuff. Obviously couldn't release it that week because of the news. And me and Barry kind of debriefed and was like, right, we've two options. We can either wait about six weeks or eight weeks for COVID to be over. Yeah.

It'll be over by Easter. Yeah. That's what Trump said. It'll be over by Easter, girl. Um, wait the six to eight weeks for COVID to be over or we release it in two weeks while everyone is locked at home and get their full attention. Yeah. We went for the two week plan and I became a national treasure overnight in Ireland. That was how that happened. It was fucking crazy. It's so lucky because I didn't have an in, I didn't have

a leg in. I didn't like, I literally didn't have any press. I didn't have any tools at my disposal. I had nothing but a new song and a new video that was different sounding. And the entire population of Ireland locked at home going on their phones. And then they see this video of this girl like dancing around the blue screen and sing a song about KFC and like, you know, breaking up with her boyfriend or whatever. And people fucking loved it. They literally like everyone in Ireland just loved it immediately. Within three months, I was like a magazine cover girl, like on the front of the like Culture magazine in Ireland. Like it was so crazy.

It was so fast and so crazy. It just happened immediately. And we had the backlog of like the five songs. And then the third single, which was released in October 2020 was I Want To Be A Cowboy Baby and that was when this shit really fucking kicked off because then it was England as well. Like that whole period of my life when I think about it now is just like so mental because I was literally fixing coffee machines and And then I was locked into my 19 granddad's house for like a year. And then when I came out, I played a solo gig to like 500 people,

two nights and a hour or something in Dublin, and had like this really... And those tickets sold out in like five minutes. And it just kept kind of happening that quickly. And it was mad. Did you love it? I loved it. I loved it. It was sick. I loved everything about it. But it was mad. Did you love it? I loved it. I loved it. It was sick. I loved everything about it. But it was all directly,

Charlie XCX said, go home to Ireland. And I said, okay. And I would not have this career if I did not go back to Ireland at that time. But a lot of people say that if you wanna be a successful musician from Ireland, you have to leave Ireland in order to break out and have Irish people take you seriously.

And obviously I live in London now because it's very, I mean, Dublin's very expensive. There's a huge rental crisis. None of my friends really live there anymore. And the business is here, but it is definitely possible to like, have a career and like break out from your hometown. Do you know what I mean? Sure. I wasn't aware that music artists did the kind of thing that Charlie XCX was doing of having of bringing fans in to have these sort of listening events and to get direct feedback in that way. That's amazing. It was amazing. It was really. She's an artist. Does that happen a lot though? No, I don't know anyone else that does that. I mean, I mean, you've really got to be tough

to do that. Yeah. But I mean, I would think. A lot of fans are just gonna be like, this is great, love you so much. Right. Cause they're in the room with you. But I think the fact that I did what I did, and then she responded well to it instead of being like, get this crazy bitch out of here. Yeah.

It's just so amazing. And I haven't met her since, I mean, I've been in the same room as her multiple times, but she's obviously now become the most famous person in the world. Yeah. Which by the way is the best thing. Well, I mean, it've been in the same room as her multiple times, but she's obviously now become the most famous person in the world, which by the way is the best thing. I mean, it's clear that she takes the whole process seriously and wants it to work.

Yeah, she probably has written like 500 songs already. If not more that are released, like she could she features on everything. She writes so many songs for the people. She's writing, it's crazy. As someone who has tried to write songs over the years and dreamed of writing a quotes proper song. You know, I'm just one of the many things I'm in awe of when it comes to someone

like you is how you hone your instincts for writing a song. How do you know what happens in a song? And how do you mix humor in there without it tipping over into something silly or like a novelty. I mean, obviously the thing that separates a lot of what you do from what someone like me could do is you have an innate talent in your voice as well. But then there are all the things that you're doing with the songs that are really interesting. So you're going to play another song for us, right? From the new record.

Yeah. And this is Coronation Street. Coronation Street, yeah. Is that named after the soap? Yeah. When I was living in Manchester, another weird job that I had was like accommodation manager. But I was like working technically in an office but I was going into all these really cheap new-build apartments in Media City but one of the

apartments and one of the apartment blocks that I used to go to was overlooking the set of Carnation Street so I was like 23 at the time that I first started writing this song and it's taken a while for it to kind of percolate and like get to where I think it's actually a good song now, which is only instinct to answer your question. It's like you can't ask anyone else is this a good song? It's like, do you think it's a good song? Yes or no. And if the answer is fully yes, then it's time to go and just release it. What are the things that make you think it's not a good song or not good enough?

Honestly, a lot of the time it's like structure. I can't get the structure. So I have the bits. I have like the bits all floating around, but I can't figure out how to line them up in a way that's instinctive and feels good and is pleasing to the ear and is beautiful. I really care about beauty.

When I love a songwriter, but hate some of their output, it's because they've tried to make something too weird or too cool or too angular or something. And I'm always just like, I actually just want to be bowled over by something. But as I was saying, in this apartment, you could see the back of the South Carnation Street, which is fascinating

because you see the real front of the house and then you see that the back is just like a pillar that's standing up. It's like just this skinny bit of the front of the house and there's nothing else. So it's like a fake town and a fake village. And when I was 23, I was working all these terrible jobs and was trying to be a songwriter so badly

and nothing was landing. And because I had no money, I was never going out. And so I used to just like stay in my apartment all the time, smoking absolutely loads of weed all the time, watching the same video of New Order over and over again on my fucking telly. Like, I was not normal. Like, I was not going to the club.

I should have been going to the club, but instead I was doing weird stuff. And I really, at that time, was like, how does anyone get a real life? That was something that I really struggled. I was like, how does everyone like going out and like making friends and like dating and like doing all these interesting,

cool things with their life? Like, I have absolutely no ability to do that. I don't know how you do that. And so I felt like my life was very fake. And then I saw Coronation Street. I was like, Coronation Street is fake. And it just kind of and that's usually how it happens for me. Like the germination of an idea is like, I'll be feeling something bad.

There'll be some problem in my mind. There'll be some insecurity that I have about myself and who I am and then I'll see a piece of visual media or like I'll read a Wikipedia article about a town in America because I'm obviously fascinated by America or I'll think about Something visual I think is what I tend to go for like I don't really put a lot of like Conversational pieces in I'm always like image, image, image, reference, reference, reference, describe a room, describe a room. Right. In order to then describe, because I think you have to stay in abstraction in order for something to be good. So if I'm trying to pin a feeling, because feeling is thin air,

and how do you describe feeling? It's pretty hard. So I use like images that you put them together and you put them together and you line them up a certain way. Basically when I think a song is done is if I've successfully described the feeling that I'm trying to tell you about. I'm just always trying to get people to understand me I think is the thing.

I think that's the only job that a songwriter has is like, please understand me, please listen to me. And so you would never go, you'd never go directly for the feeling itself. You'd never say, why can't I go out and just have fun like everyone else? Not with that tune necessarily. Well, that's actually so close to the chorus of this song.

It's really funny. Oh, okay. Because the chorus of the song is I'm 23 and everyone is having fun except for me. Oh, well there you go. That's so close. I've nailed it. I try not to, because I prefer to stay in abstraction because I think it cuts deeper. Like my song Cowboy, where the chorus of the song, I'm gonna be a cowboy baby, is me describing

a Vine meme video from the internet, but also describing the feeling of being frustrated at my lack of freedom as a woman in the world to go off and be a fucking piss heads without the constant threat of violence, right? And if you manage to do those two things at the same time, you get people immediately. I think a lot of songwriters today really underestimate their audience.

Like I've worked with songwriters and they're like, you can't use the word palette in a song because no one knows what a palette is. So yes, they fucking do. What are you talking about? I've had that conversation before where someone's like, don't use the word palette. I suppose maybe what they're getting at is

don't make the language so specific that it yanks the listener out of the song perhaps. Yeah, which is the complete opposite of my belief because I think the more laser focused specific you get, the more honest you get and the more people are able to read what you're putting down. Right, because I thought that when you made the reference to the Nintendo in the other song. I think the more specific to your own experience you get, weirdly the more universal the message becomes.

Like I've always said, like the worst song ever written is We Are The World. Ah yeah. Because it we are the world we are the children. Trying to capture that many people on purpose doesn't fucking work because you have to get into the details. It's true we make a better day just you and me. Have you seen that doc? Yeah. Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is so good. Getting told how to sing like Bob Dylan by Stevie Wonder. That's the best. So funny. I love Bob Dylan so much, obviously. But yeah, I've obviously a lot of theories, opinions, facts and figures on songwriting that I've built up over the last 20 years, I guess. I've started writing songs now. It's like

10. And I could talk about it for a very long time but I probably should just sing a song. Okay well let's hear the song. I love it though it's fascinating. I'm such a joker, spent all my money on things that keep me tight and give me bingo wings that cannot fly But keep me up all night What's another Dorito to those whose life just hasn't started yet? I'm 23 and everyone is having fun except for me Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeee eeeeeee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee e I'm too tired to make my dinner right I think I'm too tired to fall asleep I think my boyfriend hates me If I'm being armed his thoughts are not deep I don't really care about him I can't care about anyone but me

There's a missing part inside it I'm misplaced while going for ice cream I scream All I do ever is try to figure out what I'm missing My thoughts can act like a pile of dust in the corner Of the room where I spent all my time I eat a seed see a binding man pine For the Eiffel Tower, any kind of power at all Holy smoker, I'm such a joker Spent all my money on things that keep me tied And learn to hate the wings my mother gave me

Oh Lord, what a life I'm just a barmaid With no lines that lives on Coronation Street I'm twenty-three and everyone is having fun except for me I'm 23 and everyone is having fun except for me. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Thank you so much. Thank you. You've got such a great voice. Thank you so much. Thank you. This advert is for Squarespace. Oh yeah!

I wanted to get weather times and finally build myself a website. Oh, hoo, hoo! Pfft! Unfortunately, I don't got no computational skill. Confused emoji! Bleh! And then I heard about Squarespace, where you can build a website in the time it takes to make yourself a sandwich. Like a gourmet sandwich.

I went to squarespace.com slash buxton and started up a free trial. I was playing baby. I found a template that I liked and typed some words and dragged some pictures in. It really made me smile. Then when I was happy and decided I would buy it I was prompted for an offer code. I typed in buxton and I saved 10%! That's right, at squarespace.com slash Buxton! I'm a website guy!

Continue. Woo! Woo! Hey, welcome back Podcats. That was C-MAT there. And I'm so grateful to her for making the time. And thanks as well to Dan and Faye from her record company who came along and helped arrange things. Much appreciated. There's links in the description of this podcast to a few of C-Mats music videos and her website where you'll find details about the release of her album Euro country, tour dates etc. You'll also find a couple of links to one of the best loved shows from the first wave of podcasting in the UK. I'm talking about Answer Me This,

hosted by Helen Zoltzman and Olly Mann. I'm sure many of you are familiar with that show and were fans from its inception in 2007. The format was brilliantly simple. Listeners would send in questions that were sometimes silly, sometimes more serious, and Helen and Ollie would do their best to answer them with a combination of research and friendly waffle. Here are some random questions that were answered on episodes

from the early 2010s. Brendan from Cork asked, what the fuck is up with unicorns? Who the hell thought they would be good for little girls to play with? They're horses with horns, wouldn't they kill them? Jamie from Milton Keynes asked, I go to a boarding school. Does that mean that my parents don't love me? Hannah from Bridge North with loads of exclamation marks asked, me and my friends wanna know,

is big dick, big feet true? Five question marks. Gareth from Ipswich asked, Why are turkey eggs not sold commercially? Are they a lot bigger than chickens eggs? Or are they unsafe to eat? And David from Stirling asked, Why the hell are the adverts for that ped egg thing

always on during dinner or when people are eating? I don't want to see those shavings while eating. Yeah that's something I don't miss about those days, those ped egg ads. Anyway all those questions and many similar ones were dealt with by Oli and Helen on Answer Me This, which ran from 2007 to 2015. They returned with a one-off special in 2023, but as of January this year, it's back. And to celebrate their return, I asked Helen and Oli my own, in no way boring and predictable question, what is your favourite uplifting

movie? Hey Adam, Helen and Olly here from Answer Me This. We've each chosen a film that uplifts us. Helen, what's yours? I'm going to choose, Olly, My Cousin Vinny. Oh, what a classic! It's one of those films that if it's on TV, I can't stop watching it until the end. So good. One of the things that I find uplifting about it, even though it is about a very serious crime. It is, it is about a very serious crime.

You get full closure. Yeah, you do. All ends tied up and you get a magnificent courtroom scene. I also think because of the era that it was made, it's allowed to deal in cliche in a way that you just couldn't now. But in the case of that film and that lightness of touch is actually quite liberating. Yeah, no one is really But in the case of that film and that lightness of touch is actually quite liberating. Yeah, no one is really like addressing the trauma of what would it be like if those things really happened to you. It's just like, what a hoot. Yeah. Well, the film that I've chosen that always uplifts me, Helen, is of course, the Muppet Christmas Carol. I realize this is not a seasonal pick. Although, as they say

in the film, wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas. Depends on your attitude towards Christmas. For some people, it's not a positive festivity. Right. Wherever you find someone chucking a jar at the wall and having an absolute fit, it's Christmas. Wherever you find someone having three ghosts visit them to teach them a damn lesson, or technically four ghosts, it's like Christmas?

For me, it's not only the best adaptation of A Christmas Carol with Michael Caine, an excellent Scrooge, even if you take the Muppets out of it, it's actually also the best Muppet movie. And I suppose I find it uplifting because it is actually weirdly quite faithful to Dickens' novel. It's not that clever with it, is it? They also take a lot of the dialogue directly from it. And that book is great.

Real Ripper. Dickens knew what he was doing. I do have some questions about whether Scrooge goes back to his old ways once January hits, but that's for the sequel that was never made. I would love that. In fact, now Disney Plus exists, it's only a matter of time before there is a Muppet. Oh, yeah. Damn, I regret even manifesting that. Now I'm down-lifted.

Damn it. There we are. Uplifting movie picks from Helen Zoltzman and Olly Mann, the hosts of Answer Me This, which has returned to the pod sphere as of January 2025. I've put a link to their question archive in the description of this podcast, as well as the email address to send them new questions. Oh my hands are so freezing I'm holding the recorder with my left hand and my phone which has my notes in my right hand and I have forgotten to bring gloves because I got all cocky and thought spring had sprung. All right that's it for this week.

Thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for all his incredible production support and conversation editing. Thanks Seamus, much appreciated. Thanks once again to C-MAT. Thank you to Helen Green. She does the artwork for this podcast. Thank you very much indeed to everybody at ACAST, but thanks most especially to you. Thanks so much for listening right to the end. What would I do if you didn't? I suppose I'd have to go and get a real job wouldn't I? I don't

know what that would be at this point. Anyway let's not think about that just now, just keep coming back and it'll all be fine. Thank you. Oh look, we're coming up to the bird-scaring cannon again. I'm going to walk in a large semi-circle around it. No, I totally sympathise with Rosie. It really is alarming. The Porthec Scatterbird. I've got to run away from it.

Okay, all right, Huggles. How you doing? Good to see you. Oh, my hands are cold. Until next time, we meet. Take great care, because it's crazy out there, and for what it's worth, I love you. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Like and subscribe, please like and subscribe Give me like a smile and a thumbs up I stick a pant when me bum's up Give me like a smile and a thumbs up I stick a pant when me bum's up Like and subscribe, please like and subscribe

Give me like a smile and a thumbs up Subscribe I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a

I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a Thanks for watching!