Marsha Swanson shares the emotional journey behind her new single “Like an Angel”
Introduction
Could this single be Marsha Swanson’s greatest song to date? Maybe. But it’s a difficult question to consider casting an eye back on such a successful and long career, full of differing themes, inspiration’s, styles and influences. Catching up with Marsha for the release was a truly reflective experience, much like our first meeting back at the beginning of 2024, for hugely successful album, ‘Near life Experience’.
There were two focuses for our interview, the impact of her music, and the exploration into the emotional journey guiding the creation of ‘Like An Angel’: taking inspiration from a personal loss, and its evolution from a ghost track and later becoming a standalone release.
The Interview
TTM: Marsha, how have you been? How has this year been for you?
MARSHA: It does feel like I haven’t quite had time to sort of take stock yet. And I’m sure it will come. I think it’s probably, I’m guessing, it’s coming in six months. I don’t know why I’m saying this, I’m guessing it’s going to be in six months where there will be that proper pause to kind of really see, and I know that Henry, who’s the producer that I’ve been working with, we keep saying we need to to meet up to just take stock of the journey that we’ve been on together so far. And you know, we haven’t been able to yet because, because we’re still in it. You have to be slightly out of it, I think, to get your reflective hat on.
TTM: It was really nice when I put the interview together this time last year. I felt like almost I was reflecting on your career. It gave me the opportunity to go through and flow through the years of albums and get to Near Life Experience. It was really amazing.
MARSHA: Love the way you say that “…get to Near Life Experience?”, because that is the thing, isn’t it? How do you get to Near Life Experience? How do you live, always with, a Nearer Life Experience mentality?”
TTM: What’s the story behind ‘Like an Angel’?
MARSHA: It was the loss of somebody very, very, very close to me in my life, and it was not planned. It came about during the making of this album, which touches on those similar themes from previous losses in life.
You can be writing about one thing, and then something else comes up that completely changes everything yet again, and I at the beginning, when I wrote it, I felt it didn’t feel the right place for it to be on the album as a main titled track because I hadn’t processed enough at that time, I do find that creativity is often ahead of cognitive processing. So you might intuitively be able to write something that’s got deep understanding in it, but your brain hasn’t caught up with that yet.
I felt that it, it was still very much part of the album, but in the Ether. So the idea of the ghost track felt really comfortable to me. It may be discovered, it may not be discovered, but it’s there.
TTM: You can really feel the story that you’ve just told us come through the single, what a fitting tribute.
MARSHA: I was thinking about the track and I realised… have you ever seen a film called ‘The Blue Bird”?… It’s a beautiful film. There’s this moment where Shirley Temple, who’s this child, sees her grandparents who died a long time ago, and she sees them for the first time, and she’s says “Wow, it’s so great to see you. I haven’t seen you in ages.” And they said, “Well, it’s because you thought about me, dear.” And it was this beautiful sort of realisation that when you think about someone, that’s when they come to life again.
TTM: How did the connection with Sam Chegini come about?
MARSHA: I think that it’s been another game changer working with Sam. So I met him originally because I had done the lyrics to some songs for a keyboard player called Benjamin Croft, and he had worked with Sam on one of his videos. When I saw the video, I suddenly could see how this person had used all the lyrics that I’d done and timed the music in the exact nuances, like in parallel with the story, and in the most sort of deeply resonant way.
TTM: How do you stay inspired Marsha?
MARSHA: I think the inspiration part is never the difficult part for me. I think the difficult part would be the practicalities of what’s involved in doing justice to any one of those inspirations. But on an inspiration level, I think that it’s about living.
TTM: What’s next for you Marsha?
MARSHA: ‘Near Life Experience’ isn’t quite finished yet, even though it might seem like it has twice, already been finished. So there are some more things still to come in the coming months.
There is a whole other project that I’ve been very deeply invested in, in parallel to this, which is, an album. It’s similar to what I’ve tried to do with my adult work. A whole collection of songs for children, with the idea of developing emotional literacy. Children of this generation have gone through so much, obviously, with the pandemic, with what’s going on in the world, and anxiety mental health has been at an all time high.
I know from the work that I do in schools, on a personal level, how powerful music can be as a way to get through to children. So that’s going to be very big that’s going to take up a chunk of my investment this year as well.
TTM: Are you proud of this year?
MARSHA: I am, definitely, I am. And I think it’s important to allow yourself to feel pleased. I think what I feel proudest about is probably that I’ve seen this all through to conclusion, with the help of these people that I’ve been working very closely to. I feel proud of us as a team.
