“Something Real” introduces listeners to the wider world of TroubleChutes. What inspired you to create this universe, and where did the idea first begin?
After years of using music as a tool for engaging children who had otherwise been hard to reach, I had long been aware of the multiple ways it could offer access points into emotional life. It was only later that I began to consider how to formalise what I had learned about what worked and what didn’t. The impetus came after providing voluntary workshops for the children at my daughter’s school, together with a fellow music composer, William Morris, who also had children at the same school. The response from the children and teachers really illustrated the wider need to me. I knew I couldn’t offer this myself to more than a few schools, so it prompted me to think about how it could be expanded into something that all schools could benefit from.
The song explores the relationship between fantasy and reality. What does “Something Real” mean to you personally, and what do you hope listeners take away from it?
Knowing what’s real and what isn’t has taken on new meanings in this day and age, with people grappling with the latest ethical questions around the use of AI. However, the central premise of the song was there before any of these questions were dominating cultural thinking. I was first and foremost inspired to consider something contrary to the usual ideas around children’s imagination. We all know that imagination in childhood can be a wonderful gift, but less is said about the overwhelm that can happen when a child is given too much fantasy without a route back to reality. To me personally, “Something Real” signifies the importance of giving children a way to connect the fantasy worlds they are experiencing back to their everyday challenges, hopes and disappointments, with an interested adult alongside them.
There’s a strong storytelling quality running through your music. How important is imagination to the way you approach songwriting and connecting with an audience?
I think the storytelling quality works almost in reverse for me from what I’ve described above in relation to “Something Real”. In “Something Real”, I was speaking about the virtues of the movement from imagination back to reality, whereas with songwriting it is the opposite way round. I write from a point of connection to something real in my life — a real struggle, hope, disappointment or realisation — and then bring in imagination to extend that same principle into a more universal concept or feeling. That’s where the storytelling quality comes in and allows someone else’s experience to meet mine.
The production of “Something Real” has a cinematic, almost dreamlike quality. How did you approach the sound of the track, and what role did your collaborators play in bringing that vision to life?
I wanted the sound of the track to feel like something that traversed the two worlds of reality and fantasy. Some of the early classic Elton John songs, such as “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “Rocket Man”, were perfect examples of this for me. I was delighted when, by chance, I was contacted by producer Stuart Epps, who had worked closely with Elton John during his formative years. I saw this as an opportunity to bring in something of that dreamlike element, building further on what producer Henry Thomas and I had already begun in terms of creating a structure that supported the grounding of the lyrical narrative. I think that combination achieved the aim.
The music video adds another visual dimension to the TroubleChutes world. What did you want the video to communicate that perhaps the song alone couldn’t?
The music video added something unique because we used the real, spontaneous interactions of children responding to the song. This provided a visual snapshot of how TroubleChutes operates in practice: children are free to interact with the themes contained within the music and illustrations, connecting them with their own lived experiences of those themes. Sam Chegini’s artistic interpretation of the footage introduced another element. His watercolour effect created a visual counterpart to the musical theme, asking the audience to question what is real in the same way that the children are being asked to consider it through the song.
Was there a particular visual idea, character, image or story that became the starting point for the “Something Real” video?
When we recorded the footage of the children from St Mary’s CE Hampton, it was to demonstrate how TroubleChutes works in practice, both for schools to see and for broadcasters to see how the same process could work for television. At this stage, there was no intention to use it for a music video. However, after the children spontaneously created their own movements to the music that so powerfully captured the feelings in the song, I realised this would be the best possible footage from which to create a music video. It was the real children, therefore, who inspired the starting point for this video. It took on another dimension, however, when I was able to share it with Sam Chegini. By giving the real footage a consistent aesthetic in line with the dreamscape, and further blurring the boundaries between what is real and what isn’t, he heightened the themes of the song — ironically, in a very real way!
TroubleChutes goes beyond music, incorporating illustration, education and storytelling. Why was it important for you to build something that exists across several creative forms rather than simply release an album or series of singles?
The music I have written for children historically has never been used in isolation, but alongside work with children and in relationship to them. That’s not to say I don’t think the music could stand alone as a children’s album, or that children and adults listening outside a school setting couldn’t still get something from it. But my aim with TroubleChutes was to create something that incorporated all the other components I had seen be useful in my work with children. It wasn’t so much about the medium as about the relationships with the children and creating a space to facilitate discussion. This could be art, music, drama or any creative medium, but music was the one I had available to me as my starting point. Since different children respond to a range of different mediums, I wanted to create something with that same flexibility, incorporating different access points that teachers who know the children well can offer to different children. It feels particularly important to me to do that now, at a time when I think those opportunities for connection are needed all the more, and at a point in my own life when I have enough experience and perspective to bring all those different strands together.
Your work seems rooted in the belief that music can encourage empathy, curiosity and self-discovery. Do you see TroubleChutes as entertainment first, or as a way of opening conversations about how we understand ourselves and others?
TroubleChutes is first about opening up conversations. However, entertainment is also part of that process. Anything that can engage us can be helpful as a starting point because we are already beginning a process of connection. In this way, I don’t see them as separate ambitions, but as parts of the same process. Often a child can close up at the thought of an adult coming to talk to them about a particular subject. An adult coming to play them a song is quite different and can create more of an opening from the outset.
There’s a nostalgic warmth to “Something Real”, while the wider TroubleChutes concept feels very contemporary. How do you balance the timeless storytelling traditions that inspire you with your desire to create something new?
I think anything truthful is timeless. It’s why Shakespeare’s plays are still so relevant today. The context and culture may change, but human needs are remarkably consistent. The TroubleChutes resource is new in the sense that I am putting all that I have lived into a new format for the first time, but the principles it is based upon — attachment theory, the value of creativity, philosophical enquiry and human-to-human discourse — are age-old.
As listeners discover “Something Real” and step into the TroubleChutes universe for the first time, what would you most like them to feel, imagine or question when they reach the end of the journey?
I’d like them to reflect on the same themes in their own lives, in the hope that this provides them with a moment to connect with what anchors them, what makes them feel connected or disconnected, and what gives them a centred feeling of something real.
