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Alys Williams: Song of Good Hope by Glen Hansard
147 Plays1 year ago
This conversation with Alys Williams is where Survival Songs began.
Ed first met Alys during the development of her one-woman show, The Lighthouse. The Lighthouse is based on a true story that involves one, lifesaving song. We were so delighted that Alys was up for recording this conversation with Ed and it’s a real pleasure to share it with you.
TW: The conversation includes conversations about a suicide attempt, mental health, struggle and survival. It’s a beautiful listen, but please take care of yourself where you need to.
Alys Williams is a writer, director and performer. based between Glasgow & Leeds. She makes work which is female-led, aesthetically and lyrically rich, and full of participation and connection. She is currently interested in how care and access can be built into creative processes, as well as exploring new modes of audience participation.
Alys’ debut play 'The Light House' ("a triumph of creativity and audience participation", Yorkshire Times) has just finished a national tour to critical acclaim. Her latest project 'Chu-chi Face' is now in development, in collaboration with Duncan MacLeod.
Show notes:
Alys’ website: https://www.alyswilliams.co.uk
Instagram: @thelighthouseplay
Help us a grow a community of survival song listeners by joining us on over on Substack:
https://survivalsongs.substack.com/
‘Song of Good Hope’ by Glen Hansard can be found on our community playlist on Spotify along with our listener’s Survival Songs. Check it out and add your own!
Find out more about Glen Hansard here:
This episode contains small portions of 'Song of Good Hope' by Glen Hansard. Survival Songs claims no copyright of this work. This is included as a form of music review and criticism and as a way to celebrate, promote and encourage the listener to seek out the artists work.
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Lydia. I'm Ed. We're friends with a playlist for everything. And it turns out, we both have one called Survival Songs. And it got us thinking, what are other people's Survival Songs? So we thought we'd find out. Welcome to Survival Songs, a podcast where each episode our guest tells us about a song that gets them through the best and worst of times. Sensitive topics might be discussed, so make sure you look after yourself.
00:00:28
Speaker
We'd love for you to support and celebrate the artists by streaming, downloading and buying their brilliant music and go give our guests a follow on social media. Help us grow the community of survival song listeners by joining us over on Substack and add to our public playlist on Spotify. Links are in the show notes. We hope you enjoy the show.
Guest Introduction: Alice Williams
00:00:49
Speaker
Hi, I'm Ed. Thanks for joining us on Survival Songs. I'm so delighted about today's guest because they're basically the reason why Survival Songs exists. I first met Alice Williams while making her one woman show, The Lighthouse. The Lighthouse was a true story about her and her partner dealing with the trauma after he attempted suicide. And while it went to some incredibly dark places, it was essentially a show about hope and it was a love letter to life.
00:01:15
Speaker
and a true story of survival. And from that, the seeds of survival songs will sound. Alice is a writer, director and performer. She trained at the prestigious Le Coque Theatre in Paris. The aforementioned Lighthouse has just finished its national tour to universal critical acclaim. And audiences left genuinely moved, and it was one of the most powerful pieces of theatre that I've ever been involved with.
00:01:38
Speaker
Before we speak to Alice, we're going to hear a bit of her survival song.
Spotlight on 'Song of Good Hope'
00:01:42
Speaker
This is the wonderful Song of Good Hope by Glen Hansard. And watch the signs now You'll know what they mean You'll be fine now Just stay close to me and make good hope Walk with you through everything
00:02:07
Speaker
So that was Song of Good Hope by Glenn Hansard, which is our guest today's survival song. Alice Williams, hi Alice. Hello, thanks for having me. Oh, thank you so much for joining us. So straight into it, where did you first discover this song? Where did you first hear it? And can you remember what it was like and kind of your reaction to it? Yeah, I think it was the first Glenn Hansard song that I ever heard actually, and I'm now quite a big fan. So yeah, the sound of it definitely
00:02:37
Speaker
I think he's an amazing musician in terms of, I think I'm quite a lyrics person or I need both. And I really love being able to actually hear the words and songs, but you can't always. And so I think, yeah, the kind of storytelling of this song just did something to me right from when I first heard it. And I think I was trying to remember, I'm pretty sure that, yeah, my partner Duncan introduced it to me.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah, probably like four or five years ago, and it just, yeah, I don't know, it just spoke to me somehow. You get songs like that, don't you, that just chime with you somehow. So, yeah, the first Glen Hansard song I ever heard, and now I'm the biggest fan, and I've seen him live loads of times.
Impact of Music on Personal Journeys
00:03:21
Speaker
What's he like live? Is he good? Oh, brilliant, yeah. He just has this...
00:03:27
Speaker
yeah this way of just being such a storyteller and but also just go so raw like there's loads of you can find videos of him online just like breaking all the strings on his guitar when he plays stuff because he just it's it's like his whole soul just cracks open and he sings to you he's like I think he he really really always takes me somewhere like
00:03:49
Speaker
almost like, I don't know, medieval maybe, where I kind of think about those like traveling storytellers and musicians that would, yeah, he has that kind of feel to him. Like an old school troubadour sort of thing. Yeah, totally, yeah. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I'm off to see him live next month, so God, he's not shit. Oh, he's amazing, he's amazing, yeah, he's brilliant. And he just sings, his whole body gets involved. He's like, ah, yeah, he's just this energized kind of,
00:04:18
Speaker
performer yeah he's amazing. So why is Song of Good Hope your survival song like what what is it that makes you go to it and without sort of delving too much why is that I need that song in particular? Yeah I think I'm somebody well I listen to a lot of upbeat music actually and I find do you know I'm not someone who listens to
00:04:44
Speaker
music loads because I find it almost like invasively moving. So I'm not someone who can just kind of get on with life with a soundtrack in the background. I find that impossible to do, especially if it's music that I really love. It's a completely
00:05:04
Speaker
immersive experience and so it's just not practical. It's almost unnerving. I'm almost scared of it. I think how much it sort of cuts right to the core of me sometimes and this song definitely does that. But there's something about this song that is really emotional but
00:05:28
Speaker
very soothing actually. It's got this very soft sound. I mean, I was listening to it again today and I feel like, I mean, we've talked before about how the kind of melody of it is almost like the sea or like the river. It has this kind of back and forth in it that is like getting sort of rocks to sleep, kind of. Yeah, absolutely. Or like a lullaby or something. And so I think it's
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah, and somebody that's very tempted to just go into battle raging all the time and I like to do and like very action focused. And there are so many lyrics in the song about kind of just going with the tide and sort of like waiting and watching and just being, I don't know, rocked by the rhythm of everything in a kind of soothing way that you don't always have to go charging into battle. You don't always have to be able to fix something straight away.
00:06:24
Speaker
And sometimes, yeah, I think I go to this song a lot when I'm tired, like weary, you know? And maybe there have been disappointments and maybe I don't quite understand why the things are happening the way they're happening. And this song, yeah, I don't know, lulls me back into
00:06:45
Speaker
some sort of rhythm of everything that feels bigger than me, like a kind of universe rhythm of it's all gonna be okay, I know. And it's obviously quite particular to you because you used it in your show The Lighthouse, which we sort of spoke about in the intro. And why was it so important to use that song within the show?
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think it feels like a really important song for Duncan, my partner, and I. And like, yeah, he introduced me to Glenn Hansen. And that's always been a really special song for us. So it feels like quite a romantic song for us and a song that we would kind of dance to and play a lot. And I really associate it with him. And I bet, I mean, I assume most people's survival songs will be
00:07:27
Speaker
probably linked to somebody else um so this is yeah very linked to him but also kind of takes me takes me back to um yeah like holidays with my family in little rowing boats on rivers and lakes which is something that is kind of unpacked in in the lighthouse show as you know um so it's again this really like soothing energy of all all the people that are around me in my life who
00:07:54
Speaker
actually don't need anything from me and the people that I can just kind of be with in a very calm way when I'm at my absolute worst or most exhausted. And yeah, I think when Duncan had his had his breakdown, this was a song that I really clung to you because I mean, it is a song about hope. And I think like I was saying about the kind of
00:08:22
Speaker
universalness of it. I don't know, it sort of takes me into kind of nature and something that feels bigger. I feel like all of Glenn Hansen's music sort of takes you somewhere bigger into this like soul energy and I think that
00:08:36
Speaker
I really needed that through that time of sort of trusting to the rhythm of the world that everything would be okay. Yeah. And has it been in the show changed your relationship with it? Are you like, Oh God, I'm a bit sick of it. Or do you, or do you feel it's brought close to you or, or none of those, you know?
00:08:55
Speaker
No, it definitely hasn't made me sick of it. I love it. And I think more than ever, it feels like coming home somehow now or putting on an old jumper that you love. It's this very sensory thing. I can almost smell it, I think, in a sort of soothing safety blanket kind of way. But yeah, the last sequence in the play,
00:09:20
Speaker
There's a lot of metaphors about water and Duncan, who's called Nathan in the show, being kind of lost at sea and what happens on a ship if somebody's lost at sea. So there's a lot of kind of boat imagery, water imagery. And at the end of the show, yeah, we've kind of taken a rowing boat and we're going out to pick up that
00:09:41
Speaker
that man overboard with going out to pick nathan up and and this is the song that plays with your um incredible orchestral orchestrated version of it and it it just feels i don't know yeah like epic but in the most
00:09:58
Speaker
gentle way and yeah as I'm doing that there's this sense of that I can almost I can always see him in the water that's the feeling like a light in the distance by going towards and so yeah the hope just feels
00:10:14
Speaker
powerful, a hundred percent.
Emotional Resonance of Music
00:10:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. Oh, that's great that you sort of feel like you still, it's not kind of, because sometimes when you hear things again and again, you know, we get desensitized sometimes as humans, but the music's very difficult with music, right? You don't really, because I think we attach it so closely to people, right? And, and to memories and things that you can't, and in fact, I think that's why I think over years,
00:10:38
Speaker
songs that you might not have even liked when you were a kid, actually you suddenly love them when you're older, purely because it's a direct path back to that person, right? 100%. 100%, yeah. There's so many songs I used to listen to in the car on like car journeys with my parents and their music, which I had no relationship with at the time. And now, yeah, their comfort songs as well, just being a child again and driving in the car. Yeah, definitely.
00:11:04
Speaker
If there was like one, is there like one bit in the song that you, that's like the bit you go, oh my God, that is, that's it. That's like why I listen. It's the bit you wait for. Cause I always think in the song there's songs, there's always like that moment in which you go, oh, or like punch the air or dance or whatever it is. Is there like a bit in the song that you, that you love?
00:11:28
Speaker
Oh my gosh, there's too many bits. But yeah, I mean, I think I love, I love waiting for him to sing the word hope every time, because his voice almost, he sort of like falls off it. It's almost like if you didn't know
00:11:45
Speaker
the song you wouldn't quite, you don't quite hear the P somehow. Like there's an openness for the end of the word and it's like this sort of breathy whisper that he just falls off when he's singing. And I love that. It just goes straight to my heart.
00:12:00
Speaker
I don't know hopes like that, isn't it? A slightly elusive, watery, wispy thing that you really get from the way that he sings it. It just glimmers somehow. It's beautiful. But there's so many words in it.
00:12:23
Speaker
there's a great line, like, you're going to need all the help you can get, which I remember almost made me laugh the first time I heard it because I was like, oh, that's a bleak, isn't it? But yeah, I'm not someone who finds it easy to ask for help at all. Love to just plow on and be independent and pretend I don't need anybody. So there's something very kind of humbling about that line.
00:12:50
Speaker
of just embracing the fact that you're gonna need all the help that you can get. Yeah, it's wonderful, it's wonderful.
00:13:05
Speaker
So I hadn't heard that song before I did the show with you and so it felt like you gave me that song which was a really like I'm really grateful for and that and Bird of Sorrow which is on the same album which are both using the show and so yeah and they've become
00:13:23
Speaker
my survival song songs as well.
Touring and Audience Connection
00:13:27
Speaker
And we're going to be putting a playlist together of all the songs that are going to feature on the podcast, as well as some of my own little numbers. But thank you so much for coming and sharing your thoughts about this song because it is beautiful.
00:13:44
Speaker
It's so reasonable. It's funny you mentioned Bird of Sorrow because I nearly picked that for today. But then on reflection, I thought maybe that's Duncan's survival song more than mine. And if you come to see the play, you'll understand why. But that's an incredible one where his voice just goes
00:14:06
Speaker
I don't know, goes into space somewhere. It's just like a soul singing at you and its voice is just breaking. I love it when you love it when art.
00:14:16
Speaker
I love it when you can hear the cost of it. Yeah. The person making it or singing it or whatever. I don't like it to be too perfect. So that's, yeah, that's also an amazing song. Yeah, absolutely. Like fully recommend those songs, like both of them. And they are both, they're both going to be on the playlist because for me, they're like a, they're a suite almost, you know, of songs because they've both been in the lighthouse.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, I just still can't quite compute the way people are responding to it. We have this lovely thing after the show where people can write on these postcards. It's very much in the nature of this actually about kind of survival moments or sometimes they share kind of messages of encouragement for future audiences or dedications actually to people that they love or people that they've lost and they're so beautiful and
00:15:08
Speaker
It's my favorite part of every day on tour, is going and looking at the new postcards that have popped up. And so we're slowly creating this almost archive of
00:15:19
Speaker
just encouragement and love and connection and hope of course. So yeah it's a really it's a really special project and I feel very lucky to be touring it and to have made it with such a brilliant team including yourself. Thank you very much it's been an absolute pleasure honestly and yeah and thank you because this is I don't know if people listen to Sile's Song of the Sequence but this is our first one and I kind of felt it
00:15:45
Speaker
was really important that you are our first guest because like I say sort of you gave me those songs and that day in themselves became my survival songs playlist from those two songs and and from that this idea was born so thank you for my first ever guest oh that is my pleasure that's such a lovely like legacy for the show as well to like spark something else about it's just all about connecting isn't it yeah absolutely thank you Alice and I will speak to you really soon take care
00:16:35
Speaker
You too. Bye bye.