Music Diary #2: Guilt, The Radio & Jam Tarts

Goosebumps prickle my arms and I start to get that “oh no” feeling, like an elevator dropping too fast. But I know what I have to do.

🎶 Monday

I’ve been accepted to a songwriting retreat in August! It’s led by Chris Difford, from the band Squeeze. I love ‘Tempted’ and I grew up singing ‘Cool for Cats’, so this is exciting. The only drawback is that the retreat demands a small chunk of money that I was planning to put aside for myself. My artist fee for the album project.

I wanted to go to Norway. I wanted to see the fjords.

In a perfect world, I’d go to the songwriting retreat and go to Norway. I could have both: something for my music and something just for me.

There is a tension I can never balance between ‘Music Olivia’ and ‘Just Olivia.’

‘Music Olivia’ gets new software and plug-ins, she gets money to spend on things like retreats, recording new songs, online courses. Development. Career. Creativity.

‘Just Olivia’ gets to do things that she likes to do, for no other reason than the fact that she’s alive and she deserves to enjoy her life. Joy. Relaxation. Fjords.

I have a hard time spending any money at all on ‘Just Olivia,’ I need to get better at that.

I decide to accept my offer to the songwriting retreat. Norway can happen another time. Maybe?

🌁 Tuesday

On the lunch break from my day job, I take a walk by the river and listen to a podcast which tells me that we are addicted to guilt as a society. I agree, I feel it in my bones on the daily.

I stare out at the Thames in a way which could be construed as mysterious and thoughtful but the truth is I am in my luteal phase and could actually fall asleep on this railing, right now.

But I do have guilt. I feel guilty about the way I’m honouring myself as a person, rather than a musician. Do I make enough time for ‘Just Olivia?’ Do I give her things she wants and needs? Or do I put all my eggs in the other basket?

I write this on Tuesday hoping that this week is gonna have some miraculous turnaround, that something cool is gonna drop into my lap and I will have a self-affirming experience by Sunday. Things can always turn around.

🥞 Wednesday

• I wake up and make pancakes because I am an adult.

• I feel better today and get a lot of things done.

• At the end of the day I ping off a reminder to a producer at Times Radio, who I was waiting on a reply from. Might as well, I think. Gotta keep my leads hot.

📧 Thursday

I grab my morning flat white and slink into the day job, settling down to a work inbox stuffed with emails.

At some point I remember to check my music email. Sitting at the top is a reply from Tim, the Times producer I emailed the day before.

Can you come on the show this Friday? Tim asks.

My brain starts to flip. Uhhhhh. UHHHHH.

TOMORROW?

Goosebumps prickle my arms and I start to get that “oh no” feeling, like an elevator dropping too fast. But I know what I have to do.

I crowdsource encouragement from the family, and they tell me to strike while the iron’s hot. I’m scared because I’ve not had the time to mentally prepare doing a live session on a station that averages 600 thousand listeners a week, but…

Be an adult, Olivia, I think. I write back and agree to the session.

A reply pings back: Arrive at 2120, on at 2150.

📻 Friday

I know it’s all been done before but it feels revolutionary to me when I do something for the first time.

Like, people have played songs on radio stations before. But for me, this feels actually wild. Insane. Huge.

It’s after work and I’m in the kitchen, standing at the counter eating leftover fried rice. Halfway through eating I question whether the rice has expired.

This triggers a new internal monologue:

What if this rice has got E.coli in it? What if it gives me food poisoning? Am I going to vomit tonight? If I am going to vomit, it will happen live on the radio. Oh god, I’m going vomit live on Times Radio this evening and it will be broadcast to 600,000 listeners. Maybe this is fine. I can survive vomiting live on the radio, it’ll be funny at least. In hindsight. Like the time I puked at Borough Station. But this will be in the ears of listeners across the country. The world. I might become a meme. That might be good for my music in the long run? Vomit girl on Times Radio. Okay, so if I do vomit live on radio it might actually work in my favour? Oh, but what if I don’t vomit but instead I shit myself? Will that be better or worse?

This continues in my head until I leave the house.

I am decidedly less nervous and am 99% sure I am not going to vomit on the studio carpet when I arrive at the News building. The Times Radio staff have offered me a glass of wine, a beer, a selection of party crisps, a Percy Pig, perhaps?

I stick to water, although I forget to take my bottle with me as we enter the control room and now I’m dry like a crisp. My throat keeps knocking at my attention: clear me, clear me, clear me!

Tim the producer is a very tall smiley man who tells me that my performance needs to finish at 9:59pm, which is the most exacting direction I’ve ever received in my music career.

I’m still doing the maths when the presenter, Geoff, finishes his penultimate segment and I’m ushered in to a room with a wide white desk, bulbous microphones, clocks ticking away in several different formats, one jam tart parked on a napkin, and directly opposite me: a giant screen showing me, sitting down, lagging by about a second.

‘Cascade’ starts playing and Geoff introduces me as “poet, podcaster and songwriter, Olivia Rafferty.” I’m mesmerised by Giant Olivia From 1 Second Ago, but have to ignore her otherwise I’m gonna be thrown.

Instantly I’m asked about the Rafferty name, and we come to a mutual agreement that I don’t entirely qualify for Nepo Baby status (Gerry Rafferty was my Granddad’s cousin). I get a few lines in about the album, what it is, how I made it and where I got my funding from (shoutout to the Geologist’s Association!).

Before I know it, I get the “take it away, Olivia Rafferty.” I start singing ‘Lion Eats the Stars,’ a number about Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh and extinct volcanoes.

(After the interview, Geoff the presenter tells me he’d contemplated indulging in the jam tart whilst I sang but then considered it might come across as a weird power play. I’m glad he didn’t eat the tart because then I’d have been singing in a room inhabited only by myself, a giant version of myself on a screen constantly lagging behind by one second, and a man eating a jam tart.)

As I finish the second B-section, I look up at the clocks. It’s almost 9:59pm. I could launch into the coda, but… the clock strikes 21:59:00 and miraculously I can finish the song here without it sounding weird. The radio angels are smiling down! I strum the final chord and I think everyone is surprised that I hit the mark. Me included.

They go straight to commercial. I start to rise and everyone waves their hands for me to stay seated. A man sidles in with his jacket and a clutch of papers in his hand, pops behind the mic and enigmatically announces the upcoming programme.

Okay… now I can go. And finally: I allow myself a few Percy Pigs.

I chat to the team at the station, get some terribly-lit pictures in front of the Times Radio sign(that I will share with absolutely nobody, and say goodnight.

I did it! I was on the radio!

And I didn’t vomit!

☕️ Saturday

I get coffee with my partner in a beautiful park and I tell him that I’m considering setting aside a piece of my artist fee to allow me to go away somewhere. Take a break. Not enough money for Norway, but maybe enough money for something else.

Guilt still weighs on me as I consider celebrating my ‘person’ self. I feel tears sting the corners of my eyes and I pull the brim of my baseball cap lower.

Maybe other creatives will understand this, but I truly feel like my worth is attached to performing, writing, and being musical in general. I don’t know who I am without it. And as much as that’s who I am, I also wish that I could see that value in myself as a human being, without the music. Without the album releases and launch shows and radio interviews.

I want to love myself and celebrate myself as a person, too. But I feel like I don’t really know how to do that.

In the afternoon we walk to a bar on a street corner and I have two sbagliatos in the sun. This can be my little celebration for being on the radio.

‘Just Olivia’ sits here in the sun, with her boyfriend, minimal makeup on, drinking a sparkling orange drink, talking about everything and nothing, people-watching.

💐 Sunday

I buy myself flowers. It’s a start?

🪩 Join Me In The Comments!

1. What was the most exciting part of your week?

2. What’s a behind-the-scenes part of your job or your artistic practice that you wish people knew more about?

3. What did you listen to this week?

Want more? Check out some ways you can support me & my music:

• buying my music on Bandcamp

• forwarding this newsletter to a friend!

• and if you haven’t already, subscribe:

  Til next time! Be good,

Olivia 🌈✨🏔🎶