Feature: Podge Lane Decodes “This Is Not What I Was Promised”
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your "This Is Not What I Was Promised" and the story it tells?
Yeah of course! So this song started with the chorus which I just kept singing over and over to myself on a bad day I was having. I felt creatively in a rut, and was listening to weird and fast music to get out of it. PUP, The Avett Brothers, Dave Matthews, Fiona Apple. There was a lot of aggression in that music that I kind of wanted to let out, so I wrote this whole song in a day emptying my frustrations about not feeling good enough. The idea of life not turning out how you were “Promised” it would be so funny. It was such a fast paced and intense song, even the drum at the start just felt perfect for working yourself into a frenzy! When I felt it was getting too much, however, I decided to bring it back down to earth with the bridge , which is a true story, about panicking in the shower while listening to Burt Bacharach. This song probably came together the fastest out of all my singles, everything fell into place!
Were there any challenges or breakthrough moments during the songwriting process for this single?
So the biggest challenge I found was making it not come across too whiney. I wanted the sentiment to feel youthful and foolish, not earnest. The idea that I didn’t get everything I was promised in life is supposed to sound silly, because what was I actually promised? The idea is that I’m screaming ”why didn’t anyone tell me how stressful this is?” to all the people doing the exact same thing, and I feel I got that point across, because people have pointed out feeling the exact same way.
How does this song fit into your overall artistic vision and what can listeners expect from you in the future?
Well, it’s the third single from my upcoming album “Multiple Dead Ends” and it continues the through line of this album. It’s facing my life long fear of growing old through different emotions, anxiety, fear, aggression, acceptance, deflection, comedy etc. Each song on the album does a great job as an insular story but as a small part of a larger narrative. I feel people who’ve heard “This Is Not What I Was Promised” might get something completely different out of hearing it in the album, and that really excites me!
Can you tell us more about you as an artist?
I started music at 17 after realising I would never be a sports star, so I started learning from there and immediately fell in love. I’ve been at it since, releasing three albums, two live albums, a few EPs, and, at this rate, probably a perfume next summer. I would consider my music broken country, like if you took a country song recording and smashed it with a hammer a few times and tried putting it back together. I just finished my UK tour and will be heading out on tour for my new album in late August with an album launch show in Whelans on August 28th. And the more I talk the more I feel like I’m on a dating site right now. I’m a Capricorn, I enjoy long walks on the beach, my biggest weakness is I care too much…..
Many of your songs seem very personal. How do you balance sharing your experiences while maintaining a connection with your audience?
That’s actually a great question for this song in particular. I had to really dig deep on this album because I wanted people to see it’s ok to deal with your worries in terrible or embarrassing ways, and to keep moving forward. Sometimes, and I’m not judging, artists can glamourise panic attacks in brooding ways, like you’re Batman or something. But for me, being super honest about having a panic attack, while listening to Burt Bacharach, it’s just so dumb I had to tell the story. Like if you haven’t listened before, go listen to I’ll Never Fall In Love Again, and imagine me in the shower having a panic attack because I don’t think I’ll live up to my expectations of myself career wise, while in the background you hear “What do you get when you kiss a guy? You get enough germs to catch pneumonia”. If I wasn’t honest about that, someone listening might have gone “oh he can talk about it, but my panic attacks are more embarrassing”. I feel as a songwriter I want people to know they are not alone, even by making myself the butt of the joke!