Mothers

This Mother’s Day saw the release of mothers, the first album by in analysis, a band I set up who create songs based on stories contributed anonymously by members of the public.

In February 2017, we invited people to write about their mothers via an anonymous form on our website. We received a number of interesting, frank and heartfelt stories about people’s mothers. Using these contributions as raw material, in analysis wrote the eleven songs on this record, which are performed by the band and a number of guest vocalists including Jon Boden (of Bellowhead), Suzanne Rhatigan and Emily Denton.

Each song on mothers has a different story to tell. One is about a mother helping their adult child through a painful breakup (Mother #54); another details the challenges a mother faced raising a young family on her own (Mother #75). There are some light-hearted stories, such as the mother who only phones to ask for IT support (Mother #47), while other songs have darker subjects such as one describing an attempt to smooth over a very difficult relationship with a dying mother (Mother #24).

It has been fascinating to read the stories people have written in. The fact that you have no idea who wrote them – and know nothing about their age, gender or background – means you really have to focus on the key emotional ideas they communicate. While the words have nearly always been changed to create the lyrics for the songs, we’ve tried to make sure the songs stay true to those central ideas. And while many of the stories are quite specific, we hope that the songs will resonate with a wide range of listeners.

Any money made from these songs will be donated to the mental health charity, Mind, and to the Samaritans.

First released on UK Mother’s Day (11th March 2018), the album is now available to listen to on Spotify, iTunes (UK), Amazon Music and Google Play and more or less everywhere else.

Additionally, a limited 12” yellow vinyl edition is also available to buy for £12 + p&p.

The record received a nice review from The Arts Desk and we also made a little video for one of the more light-hearted songs, Mother #47.