Name: Josienne Clarke
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: British
Current release: Josienne Clarke's new album Onliness is out 14th April 2023 via Corduroy Punk.

If you enjoyed this Josienne Clarke interview, visit her official website for more information. Or head over to her accounts on Instagram, Facebook, or bandcamp for recent updates and music. We also recommend our earlier Josienne Clarke interview about an even wider range of topics.



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I think that I have always tried to clarify my feelings in song. Seeking to make sense of complex situations and emotions by distilling them into a few sentences.

The content of my songs tend to be mostly emotional narrative and when describing a scene or situation it’s always through the lense of how it felt.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

More often than not I have a first line that comes to me and it‘s as though the rest of the song flows from there.

But in truth I've come to realise that my sub-concious begins writing the song long before I do conciously. So when a line or an image or theme comes to me, I write it down and I have learned to leave it alone and let my sub-concious begin its work.

Usually when I come back to it later the idea has fleshed itself out in my mind and the shape of the song has begun to take form.  

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

I write down all the lines that come to me, some of which never get used, maybe a word or an image will be taken and rearranged some else in the song.

One of my favourite parts of the songwriting process is when the song is 90% written and the last 10% is the very fine detail. The last piece is the specifc syntax, all the tiny words, whether to use “of” or “and”. It can make so much difference to the overall song how you make those small choices.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

I think songwriting at its best for me is when the melody and lyrics are inextricably linked. I believe songwriting is not poetry set to music or music with some words added to it, but rather the specific alchemy of words and melody fused together.

A lyric already contains the shape of the melody because of the emphasis those words would have in a sentence. The melody shape will need to mirror that emphasis.  

Following this natural speech patern or choosing specifically to deviate from it for effect is how I get the most affecting meaning out of my lines

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

I believe it‘s not WHAT you write about but HOW you write about it. Songs can be about tiny mundane moments or thoughts but it’s how you make that into a compelling feeling or story.

It’s not enough to simply state “a thing” you have to do something with that, make a beautiful image or elicit an emotion from the thing you’re writing about.
 
Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I’ve learned that you have to let the work suprise you sometimes. You can have an idea of how you think a piece will be but it’s unwise to insist upon that when it’s shaping itself differently. You have to be flexible enough to let a song evolve naturally.

Your sub-concious doesnt always have the same idea for a song that you do, but it is usually right!

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

I don’t really think of it as spiritual but it‘s a strange combination of very lucid, intellectual thought and some indefinable magic!

I find there's a perfect combination of boredom and pressure that make the conditions of the creative state. I need to have enough time to think, so it won’t be at my busiest time, but I also need to have enough going on around me in my life that I have thoughts and feelings to write about.
 
Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

I feel I know when a song is finished. And then in the studio recording it, I feel it naturally reaches a point where no more and no less could be added, it is balanced and complete.  

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

Not all singer/songwriters produce their own records but I love to do that. It’s one of my favourite stages in the album process.

I‘m not an engineer, I don‘t place the microphones or use a mixing desk, so there’s always at least one other person there. But I do have lots of ideas about what instruments should be used and how and where in the song.

I love the process of tasking a tiny song on just guitar and voice and directing the keyboard player and drummer on how to enhance the song.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Yes, making and releasing albums can consume all your thoughts for months and then suddenly it’s done and gone and it doesnt really need you or belong to you anymore. But I tend to find that this is the moment my new ideas for the next record come along.

As the reviews roll in for the last one I‘m back in my music room writing another!

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I often think cooking is much like writing a song.

You‘re taking some ingredients that aren’t neccesarily that exciting on their own and combining them to make somewthing unrecognisably complete from all those different little parts.