Six Months In...
Livia Nicholson asks how the project is going
Livia: Hi Claire, it’s lovely to sit down with you and chat all things music. How are you feeling?
Claire: I’m feeling quite hot.
L: Just to set the scene, we’re currently on a family holiday in Tuscany. It’s the last night of our holiday and Claire has been listening to music for six months so we thought that I would check in and see how she’s been getting on with it.
C: So where do we start?
L: Well, I wanted to start with how you’ve been enjoying the project overall.
C: I am enjoying it. I think several people thought I would get fed up with it quickly because of my declared dislike of all things musical, but actually I’ve been finding it really stimulating. I think that is partly because when I throw myself into anything and pursue it, I do tend to pursue things quite hard. I have definitely found that the moments that are ‘music moments’ for me and I’ve probably found out what are the ‘non-music moments’ too.
L: When do you feel like music suits you and you appreciate having it, and when are the times when you’ve found it isn’t helpful or useful?
C: It’s been best when I’ve been on my own and occupied in some kind of physical way, so running, driving, gardening, when my body is occupied and my mind is not that occupied. I found it harder just to sit and listen. I get distracted and I want to do something with my hands and my eyes. I’m also discovering that I really don’t like background music. I have to be able to think about it. And I really do not like a lot of people around and music in the background playing so that I can’t quite hear it. And I kind of don’t like other people’s music anyway; I don’t like other people getting to choose.
L: That’s interesting considering this whole project is other people choosing music for you to listen to, but in a kind of real-life environment if someone else is in charge of the music you dislike that.
C: I guess the thing is that mostly people have chosen music with me in mind, so they’ve given me something they think will interest me and that I will be into. Sometimes they’ve just chosen something that they think is interesting or that everybody should listen to, but even then they told me a story about it, and the stories have been the joy of it. I really like people’s pitches. I like to hear where they first heard something or what it means to them.
L: So, let’s talk about the music itself. Is there anything that sticks out in your memory that you have really enjoyed?
C: Well ,the most surprising thing was the Chopin, which my brother Jon sent me. I thought, “How am I going to just listen to nothing but piano for a whole week and what is there going to be for my brain to tag onto?” because I’m definitely a lyrics person. What I found was that it was not that great for running and gardening and so on but it worked really, really well for writing because sometimes when I’m writing and something intrudes into my thoughts, it’s difficult to snap back out of that. And somehow having the piano music there meant that when I was distracted my thoughts kind of snagged on the piano and came back round into the writing.
L: That’s really interesting because you’re going back to the situation rather than the music itself. Obviously the project aims to do a bit of both, to find Claire music she likes, and find where it fits into your life. But you’re saying that the music you like is what serves a purpose when you’re writing rather than “I love the twinkly piano because it sounds like this”.
C: Going back to what I’ve really enjoyed, I think top three: The National, suggested by you, the Yo La Tengo that Kevin suggested and last week’s The Airborne Toxic Event, I really like that too. I think those are definite plusses. I liked The Go-Betweens a lot too; the music was fun and I like the stories in it.
L: Do you think you can pick out any trends between the things you’ve enjoyed and what it is that draws you to those specifically?
C: I like to be able to hear lyrics. I like it better when the words are clear, which is because I guess I’m such a word person. I quite like a shouty song, which is where The Airborne Toxic Event songs came in. I also like – well I’ve said it before and people have taken it different ways – I like real instruments. I like being able to go, “Oh listen, there’s a piano”, or “There’s a violin”. I find that really satisfying and I find a wall of sound that I can’t identify is frustrating.
L: At the bottom of your pieces, you note other music you’ve been listening to. How do you feel about those times when you do get to choose your own music as opposed to it being given to you?
C: I have liked investigating other stuff that spins off from what I’ve been listening to that week and also remembering things that I haven’t listened to for ages. Sometimes they’re things that I know I like and nobody else in the family are into, like XTC. Or around when I got Taylor Swift and Tracy Chapman I listened to a whole load of other female singers.
L: I think it’s a very interesting approach to be discovering something new in a different stage of life! Most people exploring music would be in their teens and twenties at like parties or whatever, like hanging out with people rather than such a deliberate approach.
C: Yes, but you see my parents were not interested in music at all. My mother listened to the radio and we had this big radiogram. There were a couple of records which probably came free when they bought it, so there was a Bobby Gentry record (she’s a country singer who had one big hit as far as I know) and there was a Johnny Cash record, and all the other records they had were these Top of the Pops records which were a bit like ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ but the tracks were all covers.
L: Oh my god.
C: They were really, really cheesy. So there wasn’t any music really when I was a child. I listened to music at boarding school because we all watched Top of the Pops every week. But I wasn’t that interested and then suddenly when I went to university everybody already knew what music they liked and I felt really ignorant. And I don’t like being ignorant, you probably noticed, so I just went, “OK, not interested”. And also it was expensive! In order to investigate music, you needed to go to gigs which cost money, you needed to buy records which cost money and you might not like the thing when you bought it! But now, it’s so easy to stream music and find things you have half-remember at the drop of a hat. It’s miraculous.
L: It’s really amazing to be able to have the entire history of music essentially, for £9.99 a month. You can be like, “David Bowie is really famous, I guess I’ll go and see what that’s about” and hear the whole catalogue on a whim. I guess this kind of project would be more difficult in a non-streaming age.
C: Back in the day, people would have had to send me tapes.
L: So, to kind of round us out, I feel like it would be useful for your readers to hear: is there anything that you’re interested to explore, any genres that you’ve not dipped your toe into yet?
C: Well, I’ve hardly had any classical. I don’t know… I think recently people have been giving me more modern things and maybe there’s some more old stuff that I haven’t really listened to. I’m keen to hear more stories – if something means something to someone I want the story that goes with it. I think the best thing about all of this is everybody’s enthusiasm. It makes me very happy that I’ve hit upon something that people are interested and stimulated by.
L: It’s kind of lovely to have somebody say, “Talk to me about the things you love and tell me why”. I think it’s a really fun question to be asked and obviously a lot of other people feel the same way.
Interview conducted 29/6/25 at Volterra, Tuscany, Italy
Responses have been edited for length and clarity