Lyrics: “Letter To Myself” ~ The Lottery Winners, 2023
This morning I started writing the first section for today’s blog; the prompt was sleep(less) and I was in proper bad mood. During the day I also jotted down various prompts which I had planned to elaborate on. Regular run-of-the-mill content. But then the Lottery Winners released a new song today. What a lovely surprise. They did not mention that at all, when I saw them play a gig in Oxford, UK three days ago. And what a great song it is. I saw the tweet (with the song title) and read the linked Big Issue interview sneakily during the weekly team meeting video call around midday. I was listening to what was going on in the meeting, don’t worry: I can multi-task sometimes, thank you very much. To be fair, I probably didn’t listen properly, because multi-tasking is a myth, but that’s not the point of this post. Just from the title and the few words Thom (Lottery Winners singer and songwriter) and Frank Turner, who lends his voice for the chorus, said about the song, I thought it might be one I can very well relate too.
I had planned to check it out during my lunch break, but by then one of my music (okay Frank Turner) friends already texted me about it and shared the video and I didn’t even have to look for it myself.
OH MY GOD, this song made me cry a bit. It definitely moved me in ways not many other songs or artists have before. Frank managed to with quite a few of his songs, as my many blog posts about that should have proven by now. But there are not that many others. The first song on which the Lottery Winners asked Frank to join them – “Start Again” in 2021 – and through which I first heard of them was one of those songs. 2021 was a hard year for me and this song helped me through some of it with it’s simple invitation to “get up and start again“. The “Open Letter to Creatives” also has got many lyrics which mean a lot to me. Because even though I’m not a proper creative (as in earning my living through things I create), some of the words spoke and still speak to me.
It’s not arrogant to be proud of yourself
It’s not arrogant to be sure of yourself
It’s not arrogant to love yourself
So love yourself
And also
Celebrate every win no matter how small
which made it on the cover of my “good moments / gratitude” journal.
I had a really good time at their show on Friday. I might not know all the songs or lyrics yet, but every song definitely had me moving and dancing and humming along. And now this new song: “Letter to Myself”:
So many of the lyrics of this song hit home for me here. So so many! I guess that’s what a year of therapy does to you. In the best way possible. Because therapy made me realize how many “little T traumas” (as some therapists like to call it) little me had suffered through. I still very well recall the feeling of being different and of not really fitting in and of not being lovable and all that. It took me longer than the teens and twenties (in the song) to actually realize this and to work through some of this. I’m turning 48 in a week. Just sayin’.
Anyway, part of therapy has been to reconnect with this inner child and take care of her and validate her and support her. It feels a bit weird saying this out loud. But that’s basically what it was. I didn’t actually write a letter to myself, but everything close to it. So Thom’s words feel quite real and true to me. Because once you’ve been through all of it – and the decades of reading self-help books before that – there does come the time when “everything seems smaller”. All the fears and worries about insignificant things, that kept me awake for hours and hours for too long: They don’t really matter all that much once I got some perspective. And that feels so good.
“Your going to find songs of ‘The Smith’
And in that a whole universe for you to exist
It’s going to teach you that others feel the same way
They’re going to be your friends
They’re still your friends today”
So many lovely people I met and became and stayed friends with through Frank’s music.I will forever and ever be so so grateful for this connection Frank and his music brought into my life. But also grateful for all the great music he brought into my life, like… “The Lottery Winners”. Fingers crossed for them getting the #1 with their new album. They so deserve it!
