CLEWS and What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Three years ago this month I launched Makeit-loud.com as a way of sharing my passion and support for up and coming bands. Since then the website has been viewed in 51 countries. CLEWS were the first band I wrote about. Sisters Lily and Grace Richardson (aka CLEWS) weave a musical magic that’s good for the soul, and good for the dancefloor. The core theme of their songs is love and relationships. CLEWS are not the first to plough that field, but they do so in a way that sets them apart from other artists.
Love is something most people can relate to, but often find it difficult to interpret. That’s why we need CLEWS, and artists like them, because we struggle to understand (and be honest about) our feelings. Listening to CLEWS, or their brilliant podcast ‘Love CLEWS’, helps make sense of the world in ways that we often can’t do on our own.
In short, Lily Richardson’s lyrics are a lens in to the soul. Her writing reminds us that there will be times when love eludes us, and there will be failed attempts to communicate our feelings. We come to learn that in order to love we will need to demonstrate trust and understanding, whilst also being prepared to show our vulnerable side.
CLEWS would be the first to admit that they haven’t got life all figured out, but their openness about the journey is so engaging.
Lily and Grace Richardson are more than siblings; they are sisters in arms. And, in a world where pop lyrics are more soap-suds than substance, Lily Richardson offers a Delphic (“I can read the mind of boys like you”) rather than a tabloid newspaper take on life.
Many people assume that artists like CLEWS are ‘thick-skinned’, and must be that way in order to cope with the constant critiquing of their work. But I believe it’s quite the opposite. You have to be ‘thin-skinned’ to be in touch with your emotions and have the capacity to translate them in an artistic way. That makes it all the more heroic. Which of us living outside of the artist’s den is prepared to share our most personal thoughts with the rest of the world?
Ultimately it’s CLEWS act of sharing that enables us, the listener, to learn and grow. Take the song ‘Everything Is Heavy’ for example. The emotionally charged chorus is one of the most insightful experiences you’ll have outside of an appointment with a psychotherapist:
When you’re dropped to the bottom of the well
Pressed like metal when the ceiling fell
The way you were raised
You carry that weight, Everything is heavy
Or, have a listen to the acoustic guitar based ‘Can’t Be Real’, an autobiographical song that takes a deep dive in to early years’ expectations of love and the search for compatibility.
The philosopher Alain de Botton defines love as: The admiration of all that is good in another person. If that’s the case, we should all love CLEWS, and we’d all benefit from a little more of them in our lives.
MakeIt-Loud 