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Great Australian songs of 2018: Sarah Blasko’s Phantom

Great Australian songs you may have missed in 2018: singer-songwriter Sarah Blasko’s Phantom.

Phantom, Sarah Blasko says, ‘is about that feeling of a phantom limb, when you feel somebody’s presence in your life even when they’re not around’.
Phantom, Sarah Blasko says, ‘is about that feeling of a phantom limb, when you feel somebody’s presence in your life even when they’re not around’.

Great Australian songs you may have missed in 2018

SARAH BLASKO — PHANTOM

ARIA award-winner Sarah Blasko has emerged as one of Australia’s most accomplished singer-songwriters through six solo albums since 2004.

The daughter of Christian missionaries started singing in church before joining Sydney band Acquiesce with her sister, Kate, in the 1990s. When the band folded in 2001, she briefly played in a duo under the name Sorija.

Blasko, 42, took a career break after the birth of her son in 2015 before accepting a two-week artist residency at Campbelltown Arts Centre in southwest Sydney. The result of that fortnight was the album Depth of Field, released in February last year.

Returning to creativity

I wrote most of Depth of Field at Campbelltown Arts Centre, when I was artist-in-residence there (in late 2016). I hadn’t really done anything creative for about a year or so. I’d had a kid and was really absorbed in that.

It ended up being an opportunity to get back into doing something creative. It’s not so much that I had writer’s block; I just literally hadn’t been in that head space of being creative for a real­ly long time. It felt very luxurious to sit there for two weeks. It was just fun, and whatever came out just didn’t really matter. I just wanted it to be a stress-free way of doing things and to have fun — and if something good came out of it, then that’s great.

Rejuvenation

I brought a lot of weird and wonderful things to the space. Some things worked and some didn’t. The idea was to get me and the people I was working with ­inspired, or rejuvenated. I brought in a couple of audio recordings from people who were close to me, including from my best friend, Jess, and another was from my dad. They could read poetry or say a joke, or anything they’d been thinking about.

I find my dad very funny. He’s always a well-read guy, he’s always passionate. He’s been obsessed with Nietzsche because he’s doing a PhD on him, and he read a quote from Nietzsche that mentioned something about the “phantom ego”. I sat at a piano and my friend Nick (Wales) sat at a keyboard. The word “phantom” stuck, but it became about something else.

Writing
When I’m writing, the music usually comes first. I’d like to do it the other way around, but it always starts with the music, and then just a feeling. I like to hear what the ramble is that comes out of my mouth. It’s like I want there to be this mysterious, spiritual ­aspect to the process, and that somehow this kind of nonsense is speaking from within. I like to hold on to that mystical idea of making music as something that always wells up and seems to resonate with where you’re at. Which does make perfect sense.

I see Phantom as being pretty straightforward; I never write anything that complicated. For me it’s just that connection between the people that raised me — my parents — and then my connection to my own child, and how deep that runs. I never thought about my parents as much as I do now that I have child. I think about my childhood constantly. I’m obsessed with: how do I not go wrong with this? How do I ­impart the important things to this child, and why is this bothering me?

This song in particular is about that feeling of a phantom limb, when you feel somebody’s presence in your life even when they’re not around. My mum died when I was 23, and I just have so many questions for her to do with my childhood. But the imprint that people have upon your life, that are that close to you — it just can’t be over-estimated.

New confidence

I’ve gained a lot of confidence since I wrote this song. During that time, I didn’t really know if I wanted to make music any more; I didn’t know if I could. I was in a bit of a funny place and I was lacking in confidence. But since then I’ve really made it my mission to keep making more music than I ever have. Depth of Field was a really empowering album to make because I produced it myself. I just went for it and I didn’t second-guess myself.

The song is a real celebration of having the comfort of my dearest friends and my partner in difficult times. When I sing that song, I always think of my dad, I always think of my best friend, I think of my son, I think of my partner.

The Australian’s national music writer, Andrew McMillen has created a Spotify playlist for the songs in this column:

https://open.spotify.com/user/niteshok/playlist/46X3LlHFaoBiEXS3aaFf1L?si=9sCKQ_LcS-6kuUX5nGUCEQ

Andrew McMillen
Andrew McMillenMusic Writer

Andrew McMillen is an award-winning journalist and author based in Brisbane. Since January 2018, he has worked as national music writer at The Australian. Previously, his feature writing has been published in The New York Times, Rolling Stone and GQ. He won the feature writing category at the Queensland Clarion Awards in 2017 for a story published in The Weekend Australian Magazine, and won the freelance journalism category at the Queensland Clarion Awards from 2015–2017. In 2014, UQP published his book Talking Smack: Honest Conversations About Drugs, a collection of stories that featured 14 prominent Australian musicians.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/music/great-australian-songs-of-2018-sarah-blaskos-phantom/news-story/945cd5380d6549315cfc18cd4e18817e