Trying To Hate You was an album born out of heartbreak and confusion, yet, somehow became the reason that I found clarity and happiness. I started writing this album when I was 16 – before I even released Hindsight – at a time when highschool sucked and queer love was scary and complicated. It’s a tale as old as time; a gay girl falls in love with her best friend and (spoiler alert!) it doesn’t end well. This is why I coined the phrase “this is a story that begins with The End.” I started writing this album because my feelings were unrequited and our friendship was over. The song, “The End.” was the only way I could start this album because all stories of heartbreak must first begin with an ending.
All of these 9 tracks were written from the depths of my understanding of heartbreak as I knew it in those years of writing the album. I love looking back and having tangible reminders of who I was and how far I’ve come since releasing this body of work. This record showed so much growth from Hindsight, and I’ve already seen growth since Trying To Hate You. The experimentation in genre and sound design on this album was so much fun and really brought out new layers in my creative process which I’ll continue to delve into as I move into new bodies of work.
This experimentation also led to a much deeper level of involvement in the creation of music videos. I think the soundscapes Seetali and I created made my songs come to life so much more in the 4 music videos I made for this album. One thing I LOVED about this album is the interconnection between the songs because of the symbolism and narrative that flowed through the entire record. With so many references to film and cinema in the lyrics, I created a visual multi-genre cinematic extravaganza which I like to call the Trying To Hate You multiverse. Not really, but I think it gives an idea of what I was going for. Each music video fits into a separate genre of film to really play around with style and expression, all while conveying the same ideas about love, loss, and longing. You see, I am not only a chameleon of musical genres, but also film genres (my team hates me and all my crazy ideas (no they don’t but what am I doing at this point???)). Anyway…. To sum it up, I loosely classify this albums music videos into the following genres:
- The End. – Sci-fi/Post-apocalyptic
This video was set in a post-war world following the takeover of an extremist government. In this story, my character mourns the loss of her wife who died in the fight for freedom and LGBT+ rights.
- How To Get Over You – Fantasy/Magical Realism
Wandering through an endless forest, my character in this video is seen to be haunted by a ghost (representative of lost love) and roams around in a colourless existence. Yet, through her persistence and courage (and some magic), she finds a door. She lets go of the past and is forced through the doorway, finding herself engulfed in colour and music.
- Digging Graves – Analogue Horror
The ghostly figure reappears in this music video, continuing to haunt my character as I roam amongst graves long buried, begging to finally fill the hole (both metaphorically and literally) that has been left. Clawing through the dirt, she is raw and unforgiving in her pursuit for closure.
- Trying To Hate You – 1950’s Hollywood/Whimsy
This video (my favourite!!!) is a reflection of the song itself: a half-hearted attempt at moving on and hating someone, and going to extreme lengths to become detached, only to remain feeling these feelings to no avail. Through the recreations of iconic scenes from timeless Hollywood films, my character warps and shapeshifts and becomes the most theatrical and dramatic version of herself to try and make sense of…everything.
I need to stop writing or I will continue to talk about this album forever. I really could. Trying To Hate You is my baby. This album has taken me places in my career that I would have never expected and I will forever be grateful for this journey I’m on. Thank you for supporting me through everything. Now, with Salvation, Falling Is Fatal, Painkillers, and If We Never Speak Again thrown in for good measure, we come to our final stop: Cinema Girl.
This track really ties together all of the pieces of the story and brings all of this heartbreak back to a place of love and acceptance. When I wrote this song, I wasn’t over it yet, but I think I’d accepted that this is the way things were. I wouldn’t get the girl, but I could live with that. My memory from that time is a bit of a blur (with finishing highschool and being a musician outside of that and whatnot), but from the lyrics, I always knew that this is how I wanted to close the album. It feels like I took all of this pain I’d experienced and learned to appreciate the fact that I enjoyed the company of a person so much that I was driven to create art from it. It feels like a song about appreciating the good in things, even if things didn’t turn out the way you planned or hoped. Instead of love, I found music (hint hint, HTGOY music video). I found songs and lyrics that I am so proud of, and for me, that is enough. Maybe “trying to hate you was never really gonna work”, but honestly, I’ll forever cherish those trips to the movies because they were fun as hell and meant a lot to me.
Thanks for being my muse cinema girl. I owe ya one 🙂
