Musician Clare Bowditch on anxiety, depression, body image

Melbourne singer-songwriter Clare Bowditch has written an honest memoir about balancing music with life’s challenges.

Claire Bowditch.

Melbourne singer-songwriter Clare Bowditch has written a memoir.

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What’s more difficult: excavating your life on the page or hosting a daily radio show, as you did for two years with ABC Melbourne?

Gosh. A large part of my decision to leave radio was because I realised I couldn’t write a book in the way I needed to, and still have the levity required to carry a radio show each day. So it was easier for me to do the radio show, and it was certainly beautiful to have that human connection every day with my listeners. I still miss them; I still wonder how they’re doing.

You play in a band with your drummer husband. What are the best bits of that arrangement?

The advantage of having a guy like Marty Brown in your band goes beyond “husband”. He’s not only a drummer, he’s also our manager and musical director. He has a keenly attuned frontal lobe, and when Marty’s on tour, I can effectively outsource most of my executive function to him. It ­allows me to be with my audience in a way that’s open and a little bit free. He’s good value.

What are the worst bits?

We do not mince words. The thriving disagreements that a couple may have in Ikea together? You’ll catch us having those on the road, arguing over what might seem like a small point. I think that probably the wisest decision I made of late was, in general, Marty is generally right about these technical details. I will leave them to him a little more these days, and that’s a luxury of having worked with someone and trusted someone for nearly 20 years.

You wrote the song Your Own Kind of Girl in 2008. How has your relationship to it changed since then?

Writing that song was frightening. I hoped it would find its people, and my relationship with the song changed — and my relationship with myself changed — when those people started writing to me and telling me their stories, based on what they’ve heard me say in that song. For a long time, I didn’t play the song. Every time I tried, I would cry, because it would strike me that I’d been so scared to talk about my complicated relationship to my body — but as soon as I did, I felt much less lonely. Almost everyone has a complicated relationship with their body. On this tour, however, because it is the name of the book, I have worked up a new version. This time it’s on guitar, and I can now play it all the way through from A to Z with whole heart. My relationship to it is more joyful, now; it helps me feel connected to the whole of the human race.

What’s something unexpected you’ve found during your life in music?

I wasn’t expecting people to be so kind. I wasn’t expecting to have that kind of camaraderie and good, generous feeling that I’ve had with my fellow musicians along the way. I don’t know why I had swallowed the story that it’s dog eat dog out there in the arts, especially in the tough old music industry. My experience has been the opposite.

What is the role of music in our lives?

We have no idea how central music is to our experience of being human. We forget that all the time: the rustling of trees, the person on the radio keeping us ­company, the voice of a lover, the singing of a mother or father, the way it’s used in advertising — all these things happen many, many times throughout a day, if we’re fortunate, and I think we underestimate how central the voice and sound is to our sense of meaning, fun and stability in the world.

Clare Bowditch’s memoir, Your Own Kind of Girl, is published by Allen & Unwin. Her book tour continues until November 28, stopping in Castlemaine, Richmond and Hobart.