Clouding My Mind
You should write these things down to stop them swirling in your head...
Hey friends,
Following on from last week’s news that you can pre-order Fractured by Beth Sarah, this week I’m excited to share a little bit more and tell you all about the next single, Clouding My Mind - available everywhere from 2nd May.
Imagine this. Boy meets girl. Boy falls for girl, but doesn’t tell her. Girl is confused, thinks he’s fallen for her, but isn’t sure. She’s also fallen for him but she doesn’t want to say anything without hearing it from him first, because there is so much at play here. Both are waiting to hear it from the other, and in the meantime their minds become so clouded with all the what-ifs and the I’m-obviously-not-good-enoughs that it’s unbearable.
Over 20 years in the making, Clouding My Mind was originally written on an acoustic guitar with a different chord structure behind it. Although the message was there, the song never quite felt “finished” until now.
With sweeping layers of synths, a haunting piano line, and vocals with a distorted edge, the final version captures the confusion and noise of an overthinking mind perfectly. And, if you listen carefully to the background in the chorus you’ll hear the whispered thoughts of the artist building to an overwhelming crescendo.
The single also includes an exclusive B-Side, On My Knees. Written at a similar time the song pleads with us to take a second look when they’ve passed by once and it feels too late. Fitting in well with the overall Fractured theme, this felt like a great addition to include on the fringes of this amazing collection of songs.
As an extra special treat we’ve also included the audio from the Live Acoustic version of Clouding My Mind as a B-side for listeners on Bandcamp. Recorded at Northbrook College we’ll be releasing a series of 5 one-off live acoustic tracks featuring just Beth Sarah and a Piano on our YouTube channel over the next 5 weeks.
Just for you lucky people here’s Clouding Your Mind (Live Acoustic)…
Let’s check in with the other scores around the grounds at Lights And Lines…
This weeks episode of The Inner Sleeve was all about Origin Stories. Is it true that Gozer Goodspeed was a a shooting star that came plummeting into the heart of Devon one winter solstice? Was GRIM17 forged not formed, mentored by shadows and listened to sirens instead of lullabies as a child? Is Mike Five even human?
We’re also busy making plans to invite some guests from various areas of the music industry to chat with us on the podcast, and some artists too!
Plans to bring back #AlbumWritingClub are also in progress. This will likely be a smaller scale version for 2025, but largely the same sort of idea with hopefully a compilation album release at the end as well.
PLUS lots of new releases, and a whole website revamp to come soon as well…
Thanks for listening - and if you like it please do tell your friends!
Mike Five
Label Manager - Lights And Lines