The outcome of a difficult and heavy winter is always a blossomy, beautiful spring if you survive.
Same as diamonds, only in this case there is a processing of the material with fire for the transformation.
Whereas the fire purifies it from all unnecessary elements, leaving behind only the very essence, the glow of the diamond.
Although, instead of the fire, sometimes the fire’s water is used as it has the same effect on the soul, burning unnecessary feelings, leaving behind the glow of creation to shine its light.
In her EP “Everyone seems to know who I am”, Lia Hide is managing to narrate in a few lines a similar story to the “Daughter of Storm and Bad Wine”, which concluded the EP.
The song was written in the summer of 2014 and was recorded in 2016, only to be released a year later.
Nevertheless, the events, which also constitute the reason for the song’s creation, begin during the period of Halloween of the same year.
“One night with awful weather (storm), during Halloween, I happened to have a rather patronizing, not to say offensive discussion with a man of power from the Greek music industry, in a bar in Athens. It was Halloween.
One conversation led to another and we got lots of drinking.
During the conversation, I was given, or better designated, the offensive characterizations of the irresponsible, the one who has no sense of her state of being (my non-existence, that is), of having a not that interesting -artistic I guess- breathing, and of being musically illiterate and vocally incompetent.
And yes, I am over-exaggerating because if this conversation had been videotaped, it would look as if I was the inexperienced one, mostly because I was stunned, standing there not being able to give any answers to any of his offenses, and that the man who was attacking me was trying to put me in my place.
But it was nothing like this.
Because if, at the same time, someone was watching the entire event ( a collaborative concert) which was directed and organized by me and was left on my complete artistic giving, then he could clearly see the abuse and the deception.
I remember his mocking words ‘let me tell you something, little girl’ by which he started every sentence, as well as his ‘who and where do you think you are’ by which he ended“, Lia recounts.
Many businessmen in the music industry act as if they are the reincarnation of the man with the bear who wanders around with the bear chained, giving her orders for the pleasure of the sadistic audience watching the performance.
Combine this with the owner of a drop-out nightspot of other decades, whereas the artist was considered to be his belonging.
And then she continues her narrative:
“I remember returning home in a taxi and not feeling good in my skin; I asked the driver to take me to a bar, where most of the musicians with whom I had collaborated for the completion of the concert for which all this conversation had taken place earlier were playing”.
From there, “Bad wine” replaces the “storm”.
“I took a Halloween mask to wear in order to hide my makeup which had started to fall apart, trying at the same time to get in the mood of the Halloween. I don’t remember how many drinks we had at the first bar.
I remember arriving at the second bar half-crazy.
I had actually just lost business collaboration with a big company and I believed I was done in the music industry.
I remember asking for a glass of wine.
It was bad, red wine, and, combining this with my previous scotch drinking and my empty stomach, my mind surrendered to my drunkenness and my body was boiling bile”.
Dealing with a bad hangover for days, the process of the incubation of the seed of creation began…
“Then the rage came up. Months after, when I had finally the chance to calm down, I decided that for my own wellbeing, there was no reason at all for me to be around this man and this place anymore and that I could do without them (just like I could be for all these past years after all).
History proved me right of course”. Besides, history itself proves that the lion cannot survive being hidden, nor the rabbit without its hole.
And she continues: “One night I grabbed my guitar, not my favorite companion in the song-making –usually piano is- and the song just popped out.
Without any stumbling, with no changes in the lyrics, no hesitation.
The lyric, ‘call me irresponsible, I just took a life’, is about that specific moment when I stood there, in a daze, listening to a bunch of responsibilities attributed to me, as if I had killed a man, from a person I once thought of being worthy of admiration.
I had scared the hell out of me that night, I had tried to hurt myself, I could see no way out, and the only thing that managed to clear a bit my fussy and tired mind was the thought of my parents (hence the reference in my song), and how much I would let them down if I did hurt myself with the excuse of this event”.
But when the flowers blossom, the storms consign to oblivion…
“And as my song was reaching to its conclusion, I felt myself calming down to the sound of my steady voice which was telling my offender that, someday, his malice, cowardness, and unfair treatment towards me, will find a karmic way to reciprocate.
I had written one of my favorite songs”.
The essence of every artist, and of every human being, is to be able to love himself and to have faith in his true self and not in an image that is compelled to create in his search for a fake acceptance of a wounded audience.
“I made the video in a way that says that sometimes I want so badly to become someone lovable to others, but I finally manage to crumple myself. And my clean, washed face brings me peace”, she concludes.
Hard times give birth to creation, just like the rocks keep clear the river.
The role of an artist is to ease his own pain, as well as the pain of his audience which can relate to the story that he describes through his notes and lyrics.