The Systemic Way
The Systemic Way Podcast is a therapy and mental health podcast featuring conversations with experts, practitioners, researchers, and people with lived experience from the worlds of systemic psychotherapy, family therapy, psychology, social work, and community practice. Hosted by Sezer and Julie, two systemic and family psychotherapists, the podcast explores mental health, relationships, trauma, resilience, social justice, culture, and change. Through engaging discussions on theory, practice, and real-world experiences, listeners gain a deeper understanding of how systemic and relational approaches can support individuals, families, organisations, and communities.
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Music by Rena Paid
The Systemic Way
Still We Listen - Where Whispers Move: Systemic Reverberations of Tracy Chapman's Music with DWP Race Group
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In this very special episode we sit down with members of the DWP - Race Group (Shakira Nkanang, Calvin Malcom and John Burnham) as we turn our systemic lens on the iconic album by Tracy Chapman (Tracy Chapman 1988).
We ask, how does Tracy Chapman's album provide a soundtrack for confronting race, power, and privilege in therapeutic practice? What do the anthems of our lives reveal about the systems we live in? We unpack how "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution" isn't just a protest song, but a sharp analysis of how power maintains itself by dismissing dissent as a "whisper." We explore "Fast Car" as a devastating map of intergenerational poverty and the gendered family roles that keep people trapped in cycles of false hope. And we listen closely to "Baby Can I Hold You," hearing the profound relational miscommunication and emotional withdrawal that can microcosm the failures of larger systems to truly hear and respond.
This episode connects the political, the economic, and the intimately personal, revealing how Chapman's work gives us a language to explore the systems that shape our clients' worlds—and our own. This conversation is more than an analysis of music; it's a living example of how to grapple with systemic themes to transform training, therapeutic practice, and organisations themselves. Join us for a session that bridges art and action, and discover how Chapman’s revolutionary whispers can continue to inspire our own.
Calvin Malcolm is a Principal Family and Systemic Psychotherapist working in Devon Partnership Trust Adult Mental Health Services, he is also a Systemic Family Psychotherapist with 26 years of CAMHS experience. He is a Guest Lecturer on the DClinPsy Systemic Teaching at The University of Exeter, and Guest lecturer on the Plymouth University Intermediate level in Family Therapy Course. He is a Systemic Psychotherapy Tutor for doctors in training in Devon. He is also a Systemic Supervisor and a member of The Association of Family Therapy organisation that supports Family and Systemic Psychotherapy training and practice standards
John Burnham trained as a Social Worker in 1974 and went on to become Consultant Family and Systemic Psychotherapist in the Inpatient Service for Eating Disorders at Parkview Clinic, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Birmingham. John’s approach to therapy and supervision is under the influence of systemic, narrative, and social construction theories and my working class roots. His professional passions include ‘thinking theory and talking ordinary’; ‘turning practice into theory’ , ‘creating self and relationally reflexive practices’; ‘creating solidarity between young people, parents and professionals through multiple family therapy’, and using social and personal GgRRAAAACCEEEESSSS….S to enable clients and practitioners to conceptualise and influence their experiences.
Shakira Nkanang is a Systemic Psychotherapist working for an Independent Fostering Agency, where she conducts therapy sessions with foster carers and social workers. She also delivers foster care and trauma-informed training, as well as systemic training to support supervising social workers. Shakira incorporates an embodied systemic approach in her work and maintains a private practice, working with culturally diverse clients. She is the facilitator of the AFT 'Race' and Diversity Working Party Group.
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman is an American singer-songwriter known for her soulful voice and thought-provoking lyrics. Rising to fame in the late 1980s with hits like "Fast Car" and "Give Me One Reason," her music blends folk, rock, and pop with themes of social justice, personal struggle, and hope. With a career spanning decades, Chapman has become an iconic figure in the music world for her powerful storytelling and timeless sound.
Welcome to the Systemic Way. Um, we're doing a very special episode today um where we're going to be exploring Tracy Chapman's album, the the debut album by Tracy Chapman titled Tracy Chapman. And we're doing this alongside the DWP race group. And it's a real, real probably to have you again with us and to do this exciting episode. It's um yeah, we'll see what comes of it. Is that I'm really excited about it. I've been thinking about it for the last two weeks fully. Um, but yeah, thank you for joining us. It'll be nice just to quickly introduce yourselves so people know who is joining us in the group. If I can start with yourself, Shakira.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, my name is Shakira Nkanang, and um I'm one of the, or I am now the facilitator uh for the race group. Um, and um there are a few of our members here. Um, but yeah, there's a lot more members that are part of our group that aren't here. Thank you, Shakira. John?
SPEAKER_02Uh John, John Burnham, um systemic psychotherapist living and working in uh Birmingham, um, but hailing from Newcastle upon Tyne. Um, yeah, being a member of the race group now for must be coming up to nearly four years, is it? Something like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_01Calvin?
SPEAKER_04So I'm Calvin Malcolm, uh systemic family therapist, uh working in Devon, born in Derby, and I'm also part of the uh race group.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, welcome. I was just thinking, wow, it's so so nice to have you all here joining us. Um, and I can't believe it's been four years with the DWP race group because I know you're super active and done so much in that time, and we're really grateful to have you here today, this evening, to kind of explore and um discuss Tracy Chapman and her debut album in 1988, entitled Tracy Chapman. And I guess we were thinking um as a way in, maybe for each of us to take time to share our connection to Tracy Chapman in whichever way sort of feels right, feels comfortable for you. So I don't know if there's someone who feels inspired and would like to start us off with that. Please feel free.
SPEAKER_08So I um was at a um meeting uh or a training session, and I remember seeing Cesar there, and Julia Jude was doing a presentation, um, and we both resonated and we started talking about Tracy Chapman. Um and it I had this uh sense of joy that I really felt in my body um because it reminds me of my childhood. I actually discovered it in my teens, and I remember the importance of this song for my other mum, uh, one of my mums, my mother figures, uh, where for her um it was about uh the sense of empowerment of of um a sort of fight for justice. And um uh she was particular particularly fond of the song Fast Car. Um and when I think about that, we were I remember having conversations about um violence um from domestic abuse relationships, and I remember connecting with her around sort of the the presence of of what it might have meant um during that time and and how times were changing or not changing, we would we would engage in these sort of conversations. And for me, there was an unspoken um uh narrative that perhaps I didn't feel brave enough to talk about as a teen, which were the discourses around race. So the presence of gender and violence, the political issues around violence was was more able to be talked about, but race wasn't, but it was very much resonating for me as I repeatedly listened to this song. It was almost like well, sorry that that's that song, Fast Car, but it was the whole album I was listening to. So that's that's what I um was resonating with when I think about this album.
SPEAKER_04With me, um this album and practically uh talking about revolution. Um quite poignant that I was um yeah, I remember uh in in 88 going to America for the first time to to meet my dad and uh sisters who lived uh in New Jersey or lived in New Jersey at the time, and um there was quite a lot of segregation um going on. Um and I couldn't understand uh the the the the the explicit segregation and sort of boundaries for Puerto Ricans and blacks and the Italians and the Jewish and uh you know, and it was it was an iron for me. Um it and it was profound. Uh you couldn't go into different districts if you were black. So this is when I learned firsthand from my dad um about the culture um in the 80s, and a lot of the the the the the cities were run down and uh quite a lot of segregation uh and poverty was quite, you know, it was it was it was it wasn't, you know, there wasn't much if you like social stratification for uh the black and Hispanic uh and Puerto Rican communities and it was quite evident as well. Um and I and and my sister was pointing out I remember her pointing out um bullet holes in um uh drive-by shooting uh in in New in New York and it was just a different yeah, it it was a different uh kind of lifestyle there and a different oppression. It felt really, really you had to know where you were going. Uh and so talking about revolution and it sounds like a whisper, it it for me, um, because you heard it on um you know on the radio at the time, and it was soft compared to what was going on uh with like it was like Run D MC was going on, and they were quite big in in 88, and uh and Tracy Chapman was quite uh a subtle way of bringing in sort of um um a kind of a political voice. And uh it was very subtle because again, um I was sort of like sort of like more into uh sort of R and B and uh and things like that, and Tracy Chapman was quite different. It was quite uh, if you like a white-sounding um track, um but very powerful. Um but then again, I think uh you know uh likes the blues, blues music, and quite a lot of blues is is quite slow and poignant and poetic uh and talks about uh you know, they they they sing about uh their experiences and things like that. So I kind of liken that to to uh Tracy Chapman's sort of choice of of of tempo and choice of sort of how she she plays um you know her songs. And it was it was different, but at the same time you could access it, you could hear it. It was like one of those, what they call them, earworms or something like that, where you you you hear it all the time and you kind of hum it and you you feel it. Because around at the same time was you like um your sort of uh labiciferous and something inside so strong. So there was a kind of a movement going on with uh the um sort of like black people and black um musicians sort of taking a stance, so it was as if there was uh something that kind of made us stand up and think about where we are and who we were as people. So yeah, I think the Tracy Chapman um talking about revolution kind of resonates with what I experienced uh when going to America, but also um the way the world was in '88 as a 21-year-old, because I was 21 at the uh at that time.
SPEAKER_02I hadn't realized um that's what was happening for you at that time. That was interesting, Calvin. Um this uh came in some ways it's about the timing is about given the stage I am in my life now, this happened halfway through through my life. And um I was I think about 39 when this was released. And the when I listen to music, um I notice when I talk to other people about listening to music, they often know the lyrics and they can sing all the way through. When for music of all kinds, I remember the catchy phrases, you know, and would remember different phrases without necessarily going and reading them. Um and and I hear people talking about songs in quite a different way than I do. Could you dance to it? Um was it rhythmic? Uh could I relate to the music, the songs in musicality in a way? So I think that's how I relate it to songs in general. And it's um preparing for this podcast that I've taken some time to. I tried listening to the music again, but couldn't follow the lyrics, the rhythm, and so on. Um, I get drawn away to that. So I had to not listen to the music, but read the just read the lyrics. So that's um interesting. I might do that more with other songs as well. But when I read through the lyrics, um it is a powerful there's some powerful pieces of um poetry. Um it it actually touches on societal issues, relationship issues, hopes, disappointments, the theme of time. Yeah, there's many, many things to relate to in this. And um it's interesting the word revolution because you can think of revolution in terms of you know um really disturbing things and so on. Or revolution is you go like that and you come back to where you were. That's one revolution, is just going full circle in a way. So I'm just wondering, have we gone in what ways have we gone full circle? And in what ways, since this song has a revolution happened in different aspects, or have we has it been an evolution uh compared to when I think about the relationship messages? I think I recognize the issues she's talking about in terms of human personal relationships, the themes are still um very strong, as are the societal messages. So interesting. Halfway through my life um so far.
SPEAKER_01And it's sending me in so many directions. Um, this album for me, I I similar to Yushakira, I kind of came across it in my teens. Um would have been a few years after it was released. Um and I I it's an album that I've come back to so many times in different parts of my life and have had different connections and made different I've understood the songs in different ways at different points in my life. Um where even in my teaching, actually, I I do in in the course, the Foundation Systemic Family Therapy, I do the kind of history and context lecture. And I start, I start with this this song, talking about revolution. It's one of the songs, and I talk about this kind of revolution within kind of psychotherapy and the spirit of revolution in our field. It's an album that just touched me in so many ways because I I I mean, I could listen to the song even now, particularly Fast Car. I mean, without naming my favourite, uh Fast Car as a real kind of connection to me. And we'll go on to talk a bit more about each song, but I can connect to it in different ways, thinking about my family, thinking about myself, thinking about my mum's journey, and I can get it can send me into so many emotional places. This album, um, it's really interesting hearing you, Calvin, talk about the kind of the context of the music world at the time and how this came out. That that's that's it's it's it's useful. This it's good to get that insight into this because I didn't live it at the time. I've kind of gone back to this album, but I always had this fantasy of like creating the kind of um either a musical or a play that talks about the themes of this that Tracy Chapman talks about in in the whole album and creating this narrative and story around it. And it was always an idea that's lived with me, probably since the age of about 14, 15, to be honest. And then when we had that conversation, Shakira, I was like, yes, maybe we can finally do something about it. And I think it lends itself so well to all the different systemic ideas that we talk about and think about, and I think it's a great um vehicle, one to kind of illuminate our thinking and our ideas, but also as a way to help ourselves, but also the people that we work with to access some really difficult experiences and thoughts and to put voice to it. And that's the beauty of art, isn't it? And I think Tracy Chapman does it in such a stunning way. So I'm gonna struggle to not sing along. I promise not to do that. John, if you dance along, John, I might sing along.
SPEAKER_02I'll spare you that. I'll spare you that I'm dancing below the waist.
SPEAKER_04Uh what also was happening, by the way, in in this period was um there was a great divide in America. Uh, the black community wanted uh government to uh be involved in their lifestyle and their lives, i.e., with welfare and all that sort of thing. And then there was a polarization with the whites. Whites didn't want that interference. And it was also the time when Jesse Jackson was going to uh running for uh presidentship as well. So there were all these things, you know, first black president possibly uh going on in America. And you know, we talk about revolution, maybe there's that could be one of the things that uh was around, you know, could this be uh you know something that was that was happening? And it was quite interesting as well because it was it was like um quite polarized in terms of who voted for who. So the Republicans, the majority were white, which uh, like you were saying, it's very similar to what's going on now. Um, and uh the the the um the uh non-whites were going for uh the democrats, and so there was this big sort of uh separation, it was quite uh it became politicized around this time as well.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. I mean, I'm so touched actually, just listening to all of you talk because it um I suppose I resonate a lot with lots of different things that were shared. Um, and I think when this conversation came up about talking about Tracy Chapman, I've had the same feeling that I've got inside of me now. Just when I first listened to it, I was 11 years old, and it had I had such a strong bodily response of stirring that there's something so powerful, so important in that music, and I still get it when I've been and I've been listening to this album at like you were saying, says it at many points in my life, but especially now, I suppose I've returned preparing for this, and I I guess I was yeah, I was 11 years old, it was 1988, and in some ways I think wow, it must have really informed me in terms of even becoming a family therapist, because I think there was something of that element of sort of social justice, and I suppose to contextualize it for me, my mum would have gone back to university in Manchester as a mature student and studied sociology. She was going on lots of protests about the importance of people having access to contraception, um walking. I don't know if this was around the same time, but also about around that time was like like protest revolution against like Margaret Thatcher was part of it. My our cousin, who's a feminist lawyer in America, had come over and I'd learnt about feminism. And I think my yeah, I suppose really the women in my family really sort of opening my eyes up to politics, um, to society, to to to injustice, really. And and I suppose I was thinking not just music, but films that I saw around that time were like Mississippi Burning, um, learning all about Cleveland's fan, Jodie Foster the Accuser, two films that came out in in that same same year. And I think there's some of those themes as well that Tracy Chapman speaks to. So I would like to say, I suppose, in terms of my connection to Tracy Chapman, that yeah, it it it kind of embodied some form of an ethical stance in me, a way of looking and wanting to be in the world in some way, and what was important to me and what choices I might make in terms of how I was gonna sort of navigate things and want to be alongside people. So it's really, really, really important. And I didn't really make that connection until we started thinking about doing this podcast. So I'm really grateful for that, and I'm really looking forward to hearing what else comes out of it as we carry on through this conversation.
SPEAKER_01Thank you everyone for sharing our connection. Should we play a song? And then we can reflect on it afterwards. So I will play the opening song of the album, which is Talk About a Revolution.
SPEAKER_05Don't you know? Talking about a real jump sound. Don't you know her? Talking about her judgment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, wow. Oh I was singing by the way. I had it on mute. I'm sure people in the office who had. Yeah, I guess thinking about it's been 37 years since the finally the table started to turn. So 37 years since the since the album dropped, and just thinking about why does Tracy Chapman's commentary on poverty race and silence feel even more urgent today? What connections are we making and the importance of some of the messages, particularly within that song, but in the album itself, in the times that we're in now?
SPEAKER_08Um so I was thinking a little bit about um how much this song evokes within my body. Um and I'm thinking about my embodied experiences, and I think about the clients that I work with. And it feels like the the song is like uh an invitation to not only listen to what's what's said, but also what might be carried in the body, what's shaped by power and what's um repeated across generations and what's held. And and when she was talking about um the whisper, I was thinking about is that the whisper of signals of suppressed uh resistance? Um and Calvin, when you were talking earlier about um you you wondered if it was, you know, like a white person that was singing the song. Um, I was then thinking, um, well, what can be heard in terms of when we say things in a certain way or if we present in a certain way, uh, depending on how we look or where we may have come from, then what gets heard and how is it then, how is it that we might need to present something in order for people to call in and to take that action? Um and so I was really um thinking about, so I've been developing and working with John and others around the senses framework, and I was thinking how much we might get stuck in our practice around cognitive positions and from a cultural positioning um around cultural expressions of emotion. And if we're thinking about the racial stories, the poverty stories, um, what gets attended to and what doesn't. That's where I was going to initially.
SPEAKER_04Yes. I I you can get trapped into kind of pigeonholing or categorizing sort of music and you know what what's been heard from music depending on whether the genres sort of pop, rock, soul, R and B, jazz, hip-hop, you kind of um think that people can't orientate or or kind of navigate through all those different genres and and still sort of hear something that resonates with them. And I think that that that's is probably true with with uh uh uh uh you know with uh Tracy Chapman. Uh because if you remember, well maybe you should remember, but uh similar things happened to Jimi Hendrix. You know, the the the the when when he was first out, the black community shunned him, saying that's white music, you know, and uh it was difficult for him to sort of uh get resonance with the black community until later, later on when the Isley brothers um asked him to play on their tracks, you know, uh Summer Breeze, say for instance, that was Jimi Hendrix playing the the the guitar on that, so he became more accepted in the black community. So sometimes it's it's difficult for um people to kind of if you like orientate to an understanding of uh a person's music if it isn't sort of linked in with a kind of atypical uh style of music for that uh particular culture. It's really difficult. So maybe there were people that didn't hear that that song Revolution.
SPEAKER_02What would you what genre would you describe Tracy Chapman as singing? I'd say uh blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_03Folk, folk folk pop, uh folk folk. Yeah, there's a bit of rock folk folk rock, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's a kind of singing that you can hear the words if you listen, so that's not always the case, is it? It is interesting, she doesn't mention race in this song. Poverty here. And those sentiments I think speak to poor people. She doesn't say black people, poor black people, she doesn't mention race. She's mentioned about poverty. Poor people are gonna rise up and get their share. Poor people are gonna rise up and take what's theirs. So it is interesting, like Martin Luther King, when he was when he wrote, he talked about, he wasn't just talking about black people, which was important, but he talked about uh disenfranchised people. So it is interesting. Because she's a black singer, does this only relate to black people or black issues? Uh I think not. I think she's talking more broadly than that.
SPEAKER_04However, I think on two tracks she she she uses the language master. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and and that's an old phrase. Sure, sure. Oh, yeah, I'm just talking about this. Yeah, yeah, that this song. Um so I think maybe there are uh sort of aspects of messages. Uh that that that kind of yeah.
SPEAKER_08As you were um talking about this idea around sort of messages, it made it made me think a little bit about our practice. And you know, um in systemic practice, we're looking at sometimes maybe patterns um that might be occurring within a family dynamic. And it made me think about when we're listening, so is the languaging or the way that maybe expression is occurring familiar to us when you were talking about um, is it familiar or how is it heard, um, Kelvin? It then made me think about the patterns. And if we think, if we're stopping at the family, what do we what do we then ignore? So if we're thinking about differences around privileges and marginalization for certain classes or um um uh certain uh people with differing economic status, for example, um, what gets centralized? What is it that we then might ignore? What stories then might get unheard? And it's almost like do we pick up on these little whispers where we hear a little comment every now and then that might be said or not said, or do we notice in the body of how our clients are presenting? And how do we hear these little little whispers in practice where we're moving sometimes a little bit, taking a um stepping out of the family and seeing how what's happening in those other social contexts or those other discourses, and how does it then impact on the family?
SPEAKER_02I had imagined that in a family, I was thinking about a particular couple where um you might take this song or one of the songs, um, I think the fast car one with a couple, where you get each you get them each to read the song, the lyrics, and then say what that means to each member of the couple to see how what how this song either whispers or I I that would be interesting to think what does the song whisper to them, what's the quiet messages, and what are the louder messages? Because I suppose in some ways, sometimes when you listen to something, we'll first hear the louder messages and we'll miss the whispers. So you have to read it carefully and reread it maybe two, three times before you hear, oh, I hadn't heard that the first time. I didn't see that. So that might be interesting to use in our therapeutic work.
SPEAKER_01It's really really interesting. Um it got me thinking about the uh Ferrer's pedagogy of the oppressed, and that kind of moving from that kind of silent, passive oppressed state, you know, when I think some of the words are well, the whisper is one, right? And this kind of like silencing and the oppression, but also that kind of um what how does how does she say it? Talks about um waiting in line for promotion, this kind of and wasting time and these unemployment lines to the shift at the end of the song of uh you gotta run, run, run, run, run, right? And um there's another line, peep poor people are gonna rise up, that repetition of it. And it I I I've it evoked those feelings for me within that kind of the pedagogy of the kind of liberation psychology stuff was was coming out for me actually, hearing that kind of collective action that's needed to address some of the kind of systemic oppression.
SPEAKER_04I I I was thinking it was as if the whisper is we know your game, we know how you play it now. And the reference to the uh the sort of the person uh in the queue, you know, knowing that they're not going to get the job, um they know how the game is played, and uh so it's like it's like um uh not so much awareness, enlightenment, more more about yeah, we know how to play the game, or we know how because we know what how how the game is played, and so we know what your moves are, and so we're going to be able to rise above it and actually you know come out um fighting basically. And um yeah, I I liken that to to kind of a movement if you like. It's you know for me it's like a movement of sorts.
SPEAKER_00No, I g I guess I was gonna say, I suppose I mean it wasn't my initial sort of connection, but I when I was listening to you, um Calvin just then, it made me think about I think it's a quote by James Baldwin about like when you've got the awareness that you're moved into action your action, like what are you gonna what are you gonna do with that? Um but I think my my connection when I was listening to it was smaller in a way. It made me i I and I do, but I do feel there is that communal action that that drive even what you were talking about, Cesar. But I suppose my head went to um in in the therapy space, working with families, thinking about small acts of um resistance with the whispers as well. Like what are the the small things with that awareness that you might do that might be different from standing in the welfare line um or waiting for a promotion? And what are the what are the whispers that we might be inviting to move towards? Maybe the steps before in terms of that communal communal action, but to to lead to the run run run of everybody and the standing up and the rising. I was yeah, I was thinking, what are those tiny little moments before that we might invite the people?
SPEAKER_08Taiwo talks about that, doesn't she? In terms of um, sort of she it in terms of her work around thinking about liberation becomes aware, as you're saying, around uh those structural oppressions, and that the therapy space can be become this space of resistance. Um so yeah, that's what I was just really resonating with you when you were sharing that around awareness, but it's a call for action.
SPEAKER_02From who? It's uh as I read contrast some of the lines, wasting time in the unemployment lines, sitting around, and then you jump to don't you know you better run, run, run. Oh, I said you better run run. So she's exhorting people into some personal action from sitting around. If you're sitting around waiting for somebody else to do something, you better run, run, run. Finally, the so something's happening somewhere else because finally the tables are starting to turn. So something's happened somewhere, so don't sit there, run over to where the action's happening, wherever that is, and then maybe um somebody else has started something that you can join in. Yeah, and I I think you're right, um Julia. Well, no, I resonate with that about um in because it's not just small acts of resistance, that's resisting that, it's what you create, small acts of creation is what we as well as resisting that, you're resisting the temptation to sit and think that somebody else is gonna do something. You start to create something of yourself. Maybe that's joining with other people, don't just sit there on your own, go and join with other people and so on.
SPEAKER_01She frames it as a like a moral necessity, doesn't she? Yeah, where she's like, poor people are gonna take what's theirs. Is that gonna rise up and take what's theirs? That's really powerful. And um god, I mean at the time I can imagine how how impactful that may have been. Um and when I first heard the album, I connected to that story of like class and poverty, I guess. But listening to it now, I have had a different experience to that. Finally the the tables have started to turn, and I I had a real kind of depressed um response to that because has it turned? I mean, and I mean maybe in many ways it has, but the the state of our times now did did the revolution ever happen really? Or have we gone back, as you said, in full circle in some ways on to a need to bring some of these narratives and ideas back on?
SPEAKER_04But would it I mean, could it be like the whisper? Maybe you're not aware that something might be happening now. Maybe, you know, with all that's going on politically, you've got the dominant discourses sort of uh drowning out, they're taking up the media and all that sort of the the airspace. And so what's going on in the in the sort of micro communities, uh, the uprising, that's happening. We know that's happening. Look at Los Angeles, you know. So there are these things happening as we speak, but we're just not hearing it. It's like a whisper because we don't they don't have the access, uh, or then it's not uh something that um you know the media uh want to sort of like be talking about. They want the big stories and sort of what's going on in the communities and how they're sort of rising up against what's going on. It's not going to be something that's gonna, but I I think there is a revolution going on myself.
SPEAKER_08Is it is it a quiet rebellion? It's make this album's making me think about the sort of policies in the UK that's changed uh for for welfare benefits for those with disabilities. And um it makes me think about, you know, what what what's those quieter stories, what what gets talked about and what doesn't? Um, and does it mean that just because it's quiet that the the liberation or rebellion isn't happening, you know, what is what action is happening? Um and I suppose it's where do we turn and and uh our focus to and what is it that we might be curious about? Or take action to go and find out about. Because there's many that might not take any action and just sit on the sidelines and say, Oh, it doesn't affect me, so or um it's not obvious, so therefore it's not relevant. But how do we know until we pose the questions?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. She does say it talking about a revolution, not the revolution. And I think each generation has their own revolution. Each generation has faced and done something to contribute towards an evolution. So each revolution um contributes. I've been reading a lot more of um older black commentators and people, and some of them were saying um that because there are issues present now, it doesn't mean to say that people in the past didn't do any work. And I think each generation has its own revolution to face. There's improvements made in the past which create a platform for this generation to do to improve things still further. So that might be something about a revolution.
SPEAKER_04I'm thinking not cause and effect because that's sort of too linear, but I'm thinking about um for every shift there's probably a counter shift. Uh an opp an opposition to that, and it's that sort of that relationship with revolution, that rev you know, that that that whose whose revolution is it anyway, you know, whose line is it anyway? Whose revolution are we talking about? Because one person may think uh a revolution looks like this, and another person may think a revolution looks like that, and they're both right. You know, it's contextual, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Can we play another song? Is it gonna be a mystery?
SPEAKER_02You're gonna close your eyes and just sing us into it.
SPEAKER_05I wanted to get to anywhere. Maybe we can make a deal. Maybe together we can get somewhere, and it places better. My supper got nothing to do. Get a fan. I got a plan to get us out of here, but it doesn't get me. It's a little bit of money, won't it? Just across the border and into the city. You and I can both get jobs. Find a city what it needs to be live. But it's too young, looking like it. What it was that's gonna give us it. Somebody's got to take care of it. Back with school, that's what I do. Is it that's enough? Is it that way? Now work in the market as a checkout girl. I know things get better. Now get promoted build out as delta. I think it has done it. I got a downstairs allowed to make it both for your friends. I don't know what's all that you together and you need to find up and don't know what to take that up and then fast enough.
SPEAKER_04I'm with you on that. That's my favorite. That is my favorite. Is it? Wow. It's so powerful for me. I mean, it's it's it's it's like escaping from the shackles that is life or uh a presumed life. Uh and it could be, you know, that people are telling you, and society is telling you this is your destiny. This is who you know, this is the life that you should be living as this person. And um you know, the fast car is is a lovely metaphor, isn't it? And uh in in terms of escaping that and daring to dream about a possible future. Um and um and the comfort of that of that dream uh resonates with with my own experience actually, you know, in terms of escaping, leaving. Yeah, it was you know, I mean, for me, I was born in sort of you know um working class, poverty, single parent, five children. Um mum left um when I was 13, so I kind of more or less brought myself up uh from that age. And wanting something different. I didn't think that was the the life that I had and the experiences uh would were big enough for me. I wanted something bigger, I wanted to be better than than than what I think again back then society was telling me about me. Uh around that time I was doing sociology and I was doing about social stratification because um in England there wasn't so much knowledge about positive role models um other than Lenny Henry at the time. Um and whereas in America you had a lot more role models, a lot more stratification, a lot more sort of beliefs that that that that black people can do well. So I I was looking at plus my my family, my my dad and my sisters were living over in America as well, and and I had this this oh this this overriding urge to get out of um you know, sort of um thinking that I'm just going to uh sort of like work uh in a certain job and come home and that's gonna be my life. I wanted more so that that uh fast car resonates with with my dream of of doing something different and bettering myself.
SPEAKER_00It's funny, I think uh I used to listen to that song in that way, and maybe I've completely wrong, but it does also connect to my experience when I'm listening to it now. It's the total opposite. If it's okay to say that, Calvin, in some way, but it connects to to my early experiences, and I think particularly I would say per possibly to to do with gender, in that I feel quite worried. I think that it reminds, I mean, you know, it reminds me, I think, this and I listened to Tracy Chapman's voice, and I think of a girl with someone who's older who's making promises that it's a fast car leading to we don't know, I feel worried about who the person is. Are they gonna get the job? Where are they gonna end up? And you know, the ideas of it really makes me think of sort of intergenerational patterns as well. Um of thinking, you know, when you I suppose, yeah, you wanted to have a different script, but are you really doing a different script and and what's also sort of carrying carrying you over? And I think let's get a slow car, let's think this through a little bit instead of being in your fast car. Um but I didn't used to feel like that about it, but that's yeah, that's sort of where I'm at now. I can see other people nodding, so I'm sort of I'm sort of curious, but maybe there's a both hand there, and like you know, um, that was just sort of how how it sang out to me today.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I think there's differences if you use the word is or as. If you can think about it as a metaphor, the fast car as a metaphor, I can follow your line. If you think about this literally, and that um verse, you got a fast car, and I got a job that pays all our bills. You stay out drinking late at the bar, see more of your friends than you do of your kids. I'd always hoped for better. And she I relate that to her father. So as transgenerational, um hoping for better, thought maybe together you and me would find it. I got no plans, I ain't going nowhere. So take your fast car and keep on driving. You know, and I was saying it a bit more like Julie. Viewed with the fast car as a literal car that somebody uh views as more important than um something else. But also I can see yours. If you view that as a metaphor, something into the future.
SPEAKER_08So if I look at it and I think about what was resonating for me in this song, um, it was around the cultural scripts of responsibility. And for me, around the gendered stories um that I would observe between, for example, my brother and other males in our family, versus the expectations of females um in my family. Um, and it made me then think a little bit about um this escapism. So I viewed it as a metaphor. Is it was it false uh fantasy of an escape, or was it a real um is it, is it escaping? And and part of me, the reason why I love this song so much, because for me it was like a dream of what could be. And sometimes we do a bit of that dream work and hope work with our families of what that different future might look like, um, separate to the maybe the existing reality um we might be in and how those sort of strengths we might carry that forward and step forward. So that that's where I was going to when I was thinking about it. And the last bit is when she was saying um I could be someone or like someone, I love the way she repeats some of these sort of narrations within the song because for me it felt like a real embodied sense of dignity. Uh despite the hardship, there was a reclaiming and celebration of self and that dignity within. And for me, that felt very empowering and so inspiring. I felt so inspired. And anytime I wanted to kind of like riot, you know, I felt this fire in my belly. Um, I'd play this song, and it it really felt like this reclaiming of that dignity within self.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm I'm glad you you you shared that bit actually, because um what I find this song so fascinating is that there's so many nuances to it, you know, where there's I can listen to it and feel really sad, and I I make um personal connections to it actually, really with my mum's story, and there is a fast car story in her um dream. So I mean I'll I'll share it quickly. So my mum, who had lived post-war Cyprus, and my dad, who had been in England at the time, had gone back to Cyprus after the win. And my mum, she's the eldest female uh in her family, and she would have been 17, 18 at the time of war. So really risky times for particularly young female. Um, and she had a lot of responsibility of looking after all her younger sisters and nieces and nephews and blah blah blah. And she had a really difficult time for her. And then my dad had come after the war, things had settled, and he was introduced to my mum, and he had rented a Ford escort, which at the time I'm led to believe was you know the height of what expensive cars look like in Cyprus. And my mum shares that that's the thing that really struck her this this dream actually of his Ford Escort, but then moving to London and this escape from all the responsibility that she had for many years during war, um, and this like, okay, I can actually go to London and live my dream. And her dream at the time was to be a dressmaker after she'd made all her kind of sisters' wedding dresses and blah blah blah. Um, but then the sadness of actually she came to London to live in a council estate and all the difficulties and poverty and all the racism and everything that goes alongside her experiences. Um I'm holding on to here, um, as well as a big prevalence in our Cypriot community of like kind of post-war reactions of men kind of going into gambling and spending hours away from family home. And we lived all of that stuff, so I really connect to this story that Tracy Chapman talks about this kind of thing you spend more time with your friends than you do with your kids, and I felt like like that kid in many times in my life. So I get really emotional thinking about that part of the story and really sad. But what you shared, Shakira, is actually the story, there's a lot of hope in the story, there's a lot of resilience and a lot of strength, and that's the part of the story that I hold on to with my mum as well, actually, and and how she's in a way held our family together in many ways. But um, and it it's just how nuanced that this whole song is that really this whole journey of it um really strikes me. Another part of this actually is the intergenerational patterns, it illuminates a bit. And my journey, when I first hear about Tracy Chapman's, well, the character's mother who left her dad who wanted more from life than he could give. I remember having well, I I have a reaction to that, a negative reaction to that, and then it kind of plays out that she replicates that script, doesn't she, when she leaves her husband. Um, and I have a different empathy actually for this character of leaving this um relationship for her happiness. But whereas the first mother character in the song left her children behind, it sounds like a corrective script in Tracy Chapman's story that she then stays with her kids. So that that's that that was me thinking about some systemic ideas, but yeah, yeah, entire level different levels of context rising above.
SPEAKER_02It says interesting, this sounds like I read it as the heterosexual couple, and uh Tracy is though she wasn't explicit about her sexuality, uh, was generally regarded, it said, in the stuff that I read as being in a same-sex female couple. Um, so I I wonder why she's writing about this, about it wouldn't fit necessarily. But in a broader level of context, to me, this is from America, and I I think two parts. One is the preoccupation, the American dream, where she says, Um, you'll find work and I'll get promoted. We'll move out of the shelter, buy a big house, and live in the suburbs. And that's the American dream that's sold generation after generation after generation. And how many people? The people that get it keep it, and then the people who don't have it try to get it, and if they get it, then some people won't have it, and so that's why, in some ways, the revolution going round and round, um, not everybody can be uh at the same time, wealthy at the same time, and that's but that's the dream that they they still talk about the American dream. But I think they also for me the preoccupation with cars as an as an outward sign of um success. I've never been a petrol head as a I don't understand people's preoccupation with cars as status. I just I know I'm supposed to as a man, but I don't.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I don't sometimes that's one aspect of uh liking a fast car status, but the other is because you just like fast cars, you just like the way they sound, you like the the the look of them, you know. I've never understood that. Any any I'm I'm one of the I've got a difference.
SPEAKER_08It's so fascinating listening to the conversation because it's just making me think about discourses of masculine masculinity right now, and in that moment, I was thinking, what is it um in terms of our identity? Yeah, what do we what do we link to our our identity and what kind of holds us up for what then feels like a loss of identity?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08And these sort of gendered stories. So where she's saying, you know, stay out drinking late at the bar. Again, it's like the sort of roles and expectations and discourses of what's allowed, but how it might be linked to one's identity of what you might do, but then she talks about the market at the checkout, you know. Um, so I work um in the market as a checkout girl or something like that. The the the lyrics are. Um and it and it makes me think about who's denied um and who's allowed sort of that access to be seen, yeah, or denied um this, who's allowed to show this sort of positions of vulnerability or not.
SPEAKER_04Um and what what does what gets seen, you know, what it what is it that that then gets seen in um yeah we we're looking at it from uh uh a 2025 lens. In 1988, I think there were explicit segregation, explicit uh gender roles, um, that that politicians as well as society were more kind of wanting to hold on to. Because remember what uh there was Margaret Thatcher in about um you know her her her her idea of of what women's best at and things like that. It was that generation where those stereotypes were not so much validated, but um you you couldn't get away with things like that now. Yeah, because this would change. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00I wonder, Calvin, though, like if you look on Instagram and what's happening in um younger generations of what's being promoted in terms of um heterosexual identities of being female is like being at be it being at home, being more traditional, a man going out. So, in a way, I suppose it brings me back to John's idea of revolution of what is actually happening in terms of younger generations with both some of some of those ideas I think are finding their ways quite strongly back for for people. And I know I have in our cam service like lots of conversations with young people in relationships who are going back to to thinking in lots of ways like that. It's quite interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, driven by our algorithms. Depending on algorithm is depending what discourse we get fed, right? So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Reflecting on her um the earlier thing about the table is beginning is beginning. It is that metaphor we say it get a place at the table. You know, that's uh when decisions are being made. That's a metaphor that's often saying you want to get a seat at the table so that you can have your voice and so on. And you may be whispering in the background, but the aim is to get it at the table, the table's beginning to turn. And I I do think that each generation has its own um fight to fight, struggles to um overcome, uh successes to create. What young people are creating as success now sometimes seems very alien. Um and well, you know, if you keep your flares long enough, they'll come back into fashion.
SPEAKER_08And it makes me think, um, Calvin, when you were talking about sort of gendered stories, I was thinking about uh sexuality at that time, about what was permissible. So where's she a fast car? I want a ticket to go anywhere. And then I can relate back to the previous song about the whispers.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Like you don't know, um, you better run. And you know, it's talking about revolution. And I, you know, we said, well, what is that revolution? Is it poverty? Was she talking about something else? What was what if it was a whisper, what is allowed to be said and what is not allowed to be said, both in that context then and now? Um, so it it was also making me think about alongside that sort of gendered around sexuality and where we are in in the UK around um the sort of relational tensions of discourses of how we have those conversations and how can we facilitate um a listening space.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Um so when when she says maybe we can make a deal, it it makes me think about who then comes, as you were saying, the table, who comes to the table and what is it that that deal uh looks like? How how is conversations and how is those negotiations or um what's being allowed, how is it talked about and thought about together with others?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yes, because in some ways, what's that book, the love that dare not speak its name? So the sexuality, her sexuality at that time may have been whispered. And whispers could be somebody trying to say something important, but whispers could be malicious. And that's how people sometimes lost their jobs. Yeah, um, you know, you just had to whispers maybe associate with rumors, and so she never declared. So maybe she kept that private, and other people talked about it, but not she didn't feel she could speak about it um directly.
SPEAKER_08And that longing to be seen is is it's almost uh, you know, I I wish I could be someone, it makes me think about that longing to be seen, but in a world that maybe withholds um validation or acceptance, um unless it's um earned um uh through a set kind of um expect expected kind of discourse where then your acceptance is allowed and validated, but otherwise um there are differing rules. So it it makes me think about how do we attend to that um in our therapy sessions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Within both those songs, and I think from throughout the album, actually, that there is a strong critique of kind of patriarchy and discourses around men, particularly in Farskar, um of you know, like an alcoholic, um neglectful, and yeah, and and within the kind of revolution uh talk about revolution, um it's this kind of you know, the armies of salvation, it's like you know, like a critique of these kind of systemic patriarchal. Systemic um structures that are holding people in certain places that she's talking to, and she talks about the song because the fast car is his car, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was the one driving it.
SPEAKER_02It doesn't say he, but we're assuming that if it's good point.
SPEAKER_00I kind of connect it through though to the behind the wall as well, which I think there is a reference to it, which is about some um abuse that they can hear further on. In some ways, I've when I was listening to Fast Car this time, I was thinking of that of a story of a person throughout of the relationship of going to this place and then going and then hearing these things and the things that they hear.
SPEAKER_02I'm coming back around now to Calvin's initial position, which I was really surprised at when you talked about it as a metaphor, and I'd felt very kind of a bit depressed by it. Um and I wonder whether in training, say in our therapy, we can think about the therapy itself or the training, to have people read, say, read this first literally, whichever way around, or have half the group reading it literally, what the words are take what the words are saying literally, have it read it as a metaphor so we move between. Because I think when my response, I couldn't understand how you'd understood it like that. I said, No, no. So I've been reading it literally, but then I suppose that's what we do in therapy to try to open up different. If we initially relate to it in one way, we try to open up the another side.
SPEAKER_08It's when you're saying that, it's making me think about her song around mountains of things. It's almost like um there's so many layers, you know, not only like through CMM layers, but there's so many layers of experiences, layers of uh those sort of differing narratives and discourses, and and what is it that we then might not see or or see depending on what feels more comfortable for us or feels more familiar, or um uh but yeah, it's just making me think about that that song, the title, just the title of you know, Mountain of Things.
SPEAKER_00Or at different points in our lives, which is where we kind of started about our connections to it, because I definitely you know have felt like what Calvin felt about it, and then I've also felt today something sort of different. So at different points in time, there'll be such different relationships to it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um there is a connection to mountains of things actually that I probably hadn't made before about in that song. She talks about kind of it's a critique of like materialism and consumerism and the emptiness of it, right? And and again, if if the metaphor of the fast car and the hopes and the dreams of this kind of I don't know, dare I say like colonial ideas of success and what success is, and the critique of that, it it kind of comes back to it within that mountains of things.
SPEAKER_00And I I can and I suppose, and it's particular today, I watched a documentary about the author Edna O'Brien um this week, and she talks about having a glitzy life and having all the material things, but at the end of her life, she says the things that have really stayed with her have been nature, which I suppose would be like a mountain, and what are the things that actually really matter to you? So, you know, maybe you go through running fast car and um yeah, maybe it is a thing like you were saying, John, about the idea of American dream as well, and what what actually do you want for yourself instead of following these ideas that are put to you or the dreams you think and what they're gonna provide.
SPEAKER_01The Western dream as well, right?
SPEAKER_00The Western dream, exactly. For sure, the American dream is Western dream.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but you see that the the the the the dream was o there's an idea that the dream was only for certain type of Americans, yeah. And uh implicitly was excluded others. Um and deliber well it wasn't even ex it wasn't even uh it you know, it was it it was it was done through through transactions, through the banks, through the politics, that you know they they they kind of kept certain groups of people in their place. And maybe her dad was one of those. Um and um she wanted to be dip she wanted to break out from from the the the uh the the the if you like the life that she was told or expected to live, and that's that's where I was kind of drawing my sort of similarities about sort of getting out of um uh a life that that um I was taught was or should be black people, black people do this or really they shouldn't be doing that, um you know, and and sort of in my family, I was like the first uh to go to university, say for instance. And you know, that was a big frightening thing because that you know when I was going to university, it was like it was a white thing. Um and uh working class, going to university, it was like, well, and being black, what are my expectations? I wasn't even doing I didn't, you know, I used to mess around at school, so I didn't have the structures to get me to to to university like others may have, uh, or the expectations. My mum didn't expect me to go to university. So it was like yeah, that fast car, that metaphor it was, for getting out of what's expected of me and doing something that I was, you know, living my dream, not necessarily, you know, any other person's dream, but my dream of doing better. That's just yeah.
SPEAKER_02When did you have your first car, Calvin? What was it? Born capri. Born capri, I was seventeen. That was a classic. Yes, classic. It represented so much that it was it was like a shortened version of a the big fast cars, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_04Yes, it was. It was uh a fast version, a slow version of a fast car. It didn't go anywhere. It didn't go anywhere at all.
SPEAKER_02I was thinking about the fast car as a metaphor for a shortcut. Some people you've got a shortcut to something. Some people in the same group, sometimes people are offered now going to university, it could be a shortcut getting a degree, something like that. That's that you can get uh to a better job with a university degree and so on. So sometimes people I wonder about fast car is representing metaphorically a shortcut to something football, the success of being good at sport, that's a shortcut to to wealth for some that promises anybody can do it, and not anybody can do it. You see, lots of good footballers, musicians, that's sometimes a shortcut in some ways.
SPEAKER_08See, it's funny. I don't know why I'm having a reaction when I'm hearing that thinking, shortcut. Yeah, um, I I don't know why. I'm thinking like it feels like it because it's often maybe denied. So I'm maybe I'm I'm sort of going back to Mountain of Things where she's talking about the having the expensive car there and linking to the story of how I'm fast car.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_08I'm thinking about you know, um, communities that are denied, or um, if I think about um my own personal stories of um because I am mixed race and thinking about the black side of myself, yeah, um, the shame that goes alongside that. So when I think about when I'm hearing the narrations around wealth, I see it as a symbolism for safety, for dignity, for visibility. I see it as um uh because there's a sort of an internalized oppression. I think it was it, I made a note. Um she said something about um, I guess I'll never have that, which is linking to what Calvin was talking about of if you never had something, can you kind of visualize of what that might then be? And and where she's saying, I guess I'll never have that, it made me think about this sort of internalized oppression that one might then have, but alongside still having the sort of aspirations. So whether it was a class aspiration or moving out of what is expected given that particular identity. Um and so so you know, we're we're saying I'll revel in their attention. Um for me, I viewed it as uh a sort of prototype.
SPEAKER_02What's the it? You said I view it. What's the it you're talking about?
SPEAKER_08Oh, when I revel in their attention.
SPEAKER_02All right.
SPEAKER_08That that that line where she says I revel in their attention, or other similar similar lines where she where she's sort of hinting at being seen. Um I I uh go to thoughts around um the sort of discourses of invisibility and dignity versus visibility and sh um and and sort of discourses around sort of shame, like what is present in around that and what's the cost of all of this capitalization of around who's allowed and who's not. Um that's that's where I was going with those.
SPEAKER_01Um there's something about the um in the metaphor of the fast car, um, it was about the kind of the physicality of the fast car, like the horsepower of the fast car, the need for a force to actually break away from some of the kind of the forces of the oppression and the difficulty that it can be to escape. And the fast car was needed to almost yeah, like the dust that you leave behind, you know, like you to break away from it, you needed that. You need it was like um there was a dependency on something to escape that that she was she she also needed, and he. I know they haven't said he, but for me it's that kind of um the patriarchy of the men as the drivers here, you know, who you have access to that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I wonder if we look at the metaphor. Sorry, did I interrupt somebody there? No, no, no, no, no. Uh metaphor of I was wondering about at that time how many I'm guessing this is an assumption from watching movies or being around at that time, men would be more likely to be in the driving seat than women, and that's I think there's something about that in here that he has more if this is a heterosexual, he has more freedom than she does, and he's in the driving seat. He has the car could be whether it's fast or not, but he has a free if the car represents freedom because earlier on it is interesting, her dream. Um you got a fast car, but we won't have to drive too far. Just now, this is an interesting contemporary line, just across the border and into the city. You and I can both get jobs and finally see what it means to be living. I think when she says about making a deal, I think she wants a more cooperative relationship. Barry Mason said that um one of the things he said was that uh the things that attract couples to begin with becomes the thing that irritates them most and eventually. And so if she was attracted to the fast car and that kind of appearance, then later on it becomes an annoyance and it becomes a a sign of distance between them, not connection.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because this song also talks about the kind of the lack of growth. Yeah. Right? He almost stays childlike or immature. He doesn't he doesn't grow into the responsibility that she has of having to look after a family and raise a family.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The fast car remains a priority for him with her if things moved on.
SPEAKER_08It feels like a kind of sometimes like a um a sort of a coded reference or like a sort of this hidden kind of narrative of betrayal um that she's sort of referencing there.
SPEAKER_02Um but also systemically, I think, um, repeating patterns. Um her mother went off and she gave up school to look after her dad. So she lost the avenue of education to improve herself, um and then she's end will end up looking after the children if he goes. I don't understand that last line. What do you understand? You leave tonight or live and die this way.
SPEAKER_01I took that as um she was talking to herself. Ah leave tonight, or we live and die this way. Right.
SPEAKER_02I was saying you I thought you meant him. You leave. So she's talking to herself.
SPEAKER_04Yes, because yeah, because she wants to get out of whatever the situation she is, and if she doesn't leave tonight, she's gonna stay and live in that situation and die in that situation. That's what I how I read it. Right.
SPEAKER_08Like she's trying to she's got a choice of urgency inherited system, trying to escape this inherited system, and she has a choice to make. Yeah, and and so even though the fatigue is there and and the burden is felt um around these inherited systems and roles, um, what choices is is one making, and maybe what choices can a person have? That's where I was.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Really nice.
SPEAKER_04And I'm thinking, oh sorry, sorry, I didn't hear you. Sorry. Sorry, go for it. Uh I I was just thinking of the Barry Mason safe uncertainty and unsafe certainty. You know, the the the the the um I don't just think it's not a yeah, um, in in terms of whether she stays or goes, uh there is an element of safe uncertainty and and unsafe uh perhaps uncertainty maybe. No, unsafe certainty. Because she she knows the ex she's she's experienced the life that her dad and mum had, and it's she's got nothing to lose. So that to me is like uh unsafe certainty uh if she was to stay.
SPEAKER_01It's making me challenge my um preconceptions here actually, because I that story for me ended with her kicking out the husband, especially with the line, take your fast car and keep on driving. Yeah. But then with that what you've just raised, that last sentence of leave tonight or live and die this way, yeah. Does does she leave? Does she leave? And does she replicate her mother's story of leaving the dad with the children? And does she replicate something there? Or does she kick him out and stay with the children? And some of my own discourses of men are the one who leaves and children stay with mother, you know, that's a dominant discourse in what it is.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, fascinating. I was going, I I was wondering if um she was making a pivotal, so I wasn't sure if it was a physical action of leaving, or was she taking a pivotal emotional positioning of changing how she might view things or how she's going to experience what she's experiencing? Um, I was just thinking of pivotal moments there. And what was the choice? Was it a physicality? Because sometimes one one is in that position of responsibility, or they're in that position of this is the inherited system that she's in. And I wasn't sure, did she actually leave, or was it an emotional positioning of shifting to something different?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Is it a realization? Yeah, you've got to make a decision.
SPEAKER_04I think some of it's past tense and some of it is present, isn't it? You know, so I remember driving, driving in in your car. And that's after uh I I got plans. So it didn't say I had plans, it says I got plans.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Ain't going nowhere, take your fast car and keep on driving. And then so I remember when we were driving, driving in your car. So there there's there's there's a past context and a and a present context in which she's um singing about, isn't it, isn't there?
SPEAKER_01The chorus keep referring back to that memory of that moment of escape. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think just throughout the album, there there's so much she's sort there's just so much complexity about all of these things. Like we like we're talking about like which way it is of what it might mean, and I think that's the skill really of Tracy Chapman, isn't it, throughout because she's a great storyteller, isn't she?
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, every time when I listen and I go, you know, I go through that whole I I love listening to that whole album because I feel like you you go I go on different stories and I hear all these the the different layers, um different things at different points in time. Um I mean I I don't know, I'm I'm wondering if we should if we move on to a different um one of the other tracks.
SPEAKER_01I'll play Baby Can I Hold You? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, lovely.
SPEAKER_08I really love that song. She's talking about rupture without repair. And then she's she's calling in for an invitation. Um calling in for an invitation around, you know, the use of emotional literacy. And I and it makes me think about what might be familiar to some and what it might not be familiar in certain uh cultures or contexts. Um, but not only emotional literacy, it was making me think about um how that emotional directness might be expressed or nurtured in other ways. So the silence, you know, maybe the silence, maybe the protection, maybe through provisions. Um, but there's a she's talk attending to the need in within her own felt experience, um, where maybe vulnerability might feel unsafe, but she's calling it in. She's calling in for something to feel, you know, for something different. Um, it's almost like perturbing that that that known script that's there.
SPEAKER_02It's funny that um when I listened to it without reading it, I read uh listened, I heard sorry is all that you can say.
SPEAKER_04I yeah, likewise.
SPEAKER_02Likewise.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I was assuming it was somebody saying you that's all you can say is sorry, you can't. And so that that was interesting. When you just listen, you mishear, I mishear things, and so it puts quite a different turn on it. Shakira, when you've said that, are you that's based on the assumption that she's singing that song about somebody else?
SPEAKER_08I I wasn't actually thinking about someone else. I I was wondering, well, I don't know. I I feel like I went emotionally to two different places. I was thinking, um, maybe because I'm thinking about the context of the whole album, um, it may be wonder if she's saying is she's saying sorry um is all that you can't say. Is she is it again like a um a call for action that she's speaking around some systemic stuff that's that's going. Um and then sometimes I think she's asking for that comfort and that containment and that sense of felt connection with someone else. And so I I felt I find myself when I listen to this song, maybe because I'm listening, I often listen to this album in the context of the whole album. I don't listen to one song because that's how I've always listened to this song. But perhaps it changes my relationship to the song. I've never just listened to a track for me. That's so I read this a little bit differently when I was talking about so are you listening to them like each one is a chapter?
SPEAKER_02Yes. And then oh, what an interesting way to listen. Likewise, likewise. I never thought of that.
SPEAKER_00I listened to it in a similar way to that song.
SPEAKER_04I didn't I didn't. I yeah. That's interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Hence my fantasy of creating like a theatre play around one story where all these songs fit in. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I I can see repeating themes, but I didn't think of it as the same characters as it were. That's fascinating to I'll I'll have another go at this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I guess for me, sorry, maybe it was connecting Shikira to what you're saying. Like I was thinking like also, but just how much we might rely on words or expect words, as well as want the longing, the desire to find, but just actually sometimes just you know, the holding. Like, how do we do repair the different ways um the possibilities of that? Sorry, I interrupted you, Shikira.
SPEAKER_08No, that's all right. I was just I was just gonna um link on uh not to um with what John was saying, I I was viewing it as collective echoes. I'm going back to the first uh the first song where she's talking about um the whispers, and I view each song, including what was happening here, as like a collective echo, yeah. Differing personal experiences or failings, or in this, like an invitation for love and contact, yeah. Um and and survival for me, it's like a story of survival and and what she's she's saying, what what might help.
SPEAKER_01Um I beginning to hear this song as like um a reflective piece, yeah. Where she's almost talking to herself. So sorry is I've got the lyrics in front of me, is all that you can't say, but talking to herself, these are the things that I I can't say yet. Even after all these years, I can't find the words, yeah. And then that kind of the punctuation of but you can say, baby, baby, can I hold you tonight? Almost like it kind of um it's superficial that bit. I can't do this deep stuff, I can't access these emotions, but I I I can do this, um, but maybe, and then as that the last bit is if I um if I told you the right words at the right time, you'd be mine. So if I could access this stuff, yeah. That's how I hear it of this plea within herself, yeah.
SPEAKER_08As a sort of self-soothing, given the my view, I was thinking it's like the contextual things that she's having, she's soothing, self-maybe self-soothing. I I don't know, where she says, I love you, is all that I can say. I wondered if I too wondered if in that last bit is she talking to herself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's a little pole here, and maybe if I told you the right words at the right time, you'd be mine. If I could find a way to say these words, and it reminds me, I I think says uh it's fascinating to have people read this as somebody talking to themselves, as somebody talking about their partner. And I think that the the modern phrase of different love languages, you know, one person wants it to be spoken, and the person doesn't speak it, but they do come up and say, Can I hold you? So they they do the apology, they don't speak the apology. And I know I've seen lots of couples and lots of family members doing that. Some they don't say that, but they come up and show sorry, even though they can't, you know, and some people who say sorry but don't do sorry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that that I really connect to. That's why I when I heard the maybe if I said the right words at the right what right time, I thought that's quite a lot of pressure. Maybe it's okay to do it in a different way with with with the holding. And I don't know why. When I was just listening, then it was reminding me of um Bell Hooks um and all about love and talking about I suppose, yeah, love as a love as a practice, really. And that's what I'm hearing in this so much is about how how you know, as as a practice, as a nonfolding, and I suppose that yeah, I was wondering about the mutuality of it actually. Um, you know, who who's doing what and where to practice to get to this thing of love, and what are the ideas of how you think you should be doing it, like the right words in the right time, but there are other possibilities.
SPEAKER_04There'd be a different context as well that she is singing about because you know, like um perhaps the um is it the Daisy model where you know uh things have been said in a different context, uh, and then in this context, um it may have a different meaning, or or um in in terms of what she's saying about um uh baby uh can I hold you tonight, could there be some reference to perhaps how she was brought up? This is going, you know, um, and words weren't sort of um those kind of love words weren't something that they did, but what they did to show love was the the hugs and the and she's brought that into this relationship because it's it's kind of something that was a you know previous experience.
SPEAKER_02So historical. I was also thinking about giving this to trainees and saying, where do you think the therapeutic uh openings are? Or is that what some of the hole calls them openings? Where do you think the hope is and it's repeated twice? Um three times, yeah. Well from the three one line is repeated three times and there's a different line, but yeah's gone by and still so yeah, and you still can't do this, but years have gone by and they're still together, if it's a couple. So what kept you together, even though you're a bit disappointed that you don't say these things, don't do this thing in the same way. What's kept what has kept you together?
SPEAKER_08The hugs, and then there might be um lines of this where it might not see seem as like an opening to go in, where it says at the right time you'd be mine, which there is a specific time. But then I was thinking about um what's speaking or what informs the timing of that relational pet. What might be right for one might not be right for another, or might not be right for within self, depending on the context in which one's in. Um so yeah, it also made me think about how that that compassion can be there in the face of where it might feel like it's a specific or like a rigid position.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_08There is still that compassionate uh want and longing for um yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's making me think a bit wider, actually. I think when you said John, if it's a couple, if it's a couple, you know, and it has made me think about actually this this could be applied to friendships and all kinds of relationships, right? That kind of difficulties that we can experience sometimes in finding the words to really express ourselves in in our in our close relationships. And I think that's why it speaks to you, this song, how challenging it can be to do that, finding other ways to connect.
SPEAKER_02I mean, as we discuss it, and if we I my experience of this discussion is that we are not trying to settle on the right way to use it, but we've generated lots, and in some ways, whether she intended it or not, it's really all of these are really clever. They open up, you can either just hear it once and say that's what it means. You know, like sometimes you say what the author really meant here, what Shakespeare was really saying here. I really those kind of say phrases really annoy me. You do not know that's what your understanding, but don't have your understanding, don't let your understanding close down other understandings, which I think is what's been generated, and it's really clever what she's done. So we could it could be this, it could be that. What if we but if we read it like this? What about if we read it like that? Or is it we're just very clever readers?
SPEAKER_08And the readers it's almost like a waking up uh in this song of noticing one might need, and it makes me think about how the needs uh you know, she's coming to realise of you know, she's needing to hear those words of I love you. Um and it and it's the waking up to those girl, these are the needs that I need right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or waking up to the need that the other needs those words and that they find it hard to express. Well, yeah I mean that yeah, that um um where we can go with these analyses is what makes this very fun, it's really systemic. Um I had a similar thing with the um Dolly Part and Jolene song. I don't know, I won't play it, but I always had a like a fan theory of that song that she was Jolene. And Jolene is her like her made-up self and her like her confident self. Jolene, don't take my man. But that's that's the kind of the persona, the facade self of us. But you know, I'm taking it away from Tracy Chapman. But it just made me think about yeah, the the the listener and the listener's ear to this and what we bring to it, um, and and how that is in in therapy as well, right? And how we kind of open up these multiple stories.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It may be opening up as well. How often do we, any of us, use music uh therapy? I've used it occasionally. I've asked people to bring in a favorite song, a song that's really helped to keep their spirits alive and their faith and so on. I've asked them to bring things in not regularly, but I have done. I don't know, or a hymn for religious people, a hymn that really um uh keeps them going in times of adversity and so on. Uh do you?
SPEAKER_08Yeah. I think I tend to use it more when I'm thinking about working my family work or working with young people, yeah. They have sort of connections and thinking about what what of the lyrics or the beat or the tempo, the tone might resonate from uh to them in terms of their cultural context or um themes or in terms of the lyrics within their own family, of why those sort of lyrics speak to them. And it's an interesting dialogue where you then uh facilitate that conversation between maybe like parents and a young person or um a foster carer and a young person of um to connect and relate to levels of vulnerability that might be harder when you're exploring experiences where maybe because of various reasons such as trauma, etc., there's a bit of a block there, but attending to that vulnerability or those vulnerable um vulnerable states through music and tempo and tone, and um, I often find it's a really nice window in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I'd done a piece of work with a young person one time where um well I found out we had like a mutual love of like 90s hip hop. Oh nice. So um, and he was like a quite keen writer. So we started talking about the music, and then he would bring little bits of music and we'd play them and we'd talk about it. And I asked him if uh I mean the context was he's had a very difficult relationship with his mum, a lot of conflict, um, and his mum would had a lot of kind of personal issues going on, anyway. And there was a discussion of what he would like to share with his mum, like what part like that does his mum like your music is like that, not really. Um, but what if there was a song something he would share, and he settled on a song called Dear Mama by Tupac, and he invited his mum to come to the session. And I I did my very best to honestly to hold back tears, and it's one of my most moving sessions, actually. And the bit that he most connected to, there's a line in that song where he says, Well, there's a there's a description of the mum as a child. My mum was a like a child, he says, and he he says, What I've learned in over the last few years is um his mother's vulnerability and the difficulties that she had in her life, um, and that was a big moment for them. And yeah, well I've got goosebumps talking about it now, actually. But yeah, yeah, beautiful, I think, the ability to be on the skin.
SPEAKER_08It's funny when you're sharing that. Um I'm going back to the title, Baby Can I Hold You.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_08The context or the narrative, baby, is sort of getting in this vulnerability that we're talking about, um, just from that word.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, I've just been thinking about um the history of psychotherapy and the place. Now, this is in some ways you can view this as poetry set to music, yeah, because you can read these without music, and so in the beginning, before psychotherapy and human thoughts and emotions were medicalized, it was the poets that wrote about and expressed the dilemma dilemmas and uh some of the contradictions and um the resolutions of of things. It was the poets uh who did that, and then I think Freud medicalized it uh with some advantage, but also it got lost. And maybe this is the it's not surprising that we should find um some inspiration in this. It's not new, it's recovering. Maybe there's been a revolution, not just in terms of um uh what this uh she's writing about and what we're reading into it, but in terms of the use of poetry, uh of ways of under and music of understanding the human experience. Not just understanding, but moving it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean court jesters used to do that, didn't they? But they'd have to be very careful, used to sail too close to the wind, and they used to be beheaded because it was a bit too you know, didn't didn't like it in court. But uh yeah, they used to um sort of sing about people's yeah yeah, ill health and and and and things like that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, they would poke fun, wouldn't they? They would poke fun at things, but they may do it too much, and as you see.
SPEAKER_01It was it was about systemic psychotherapy, it was at King Lear and the Fool, and it was linked to the role of the Gwynn Daniels. Is it is it doesn't Daniels? Yeah, Gwynn Daniels uh did workshops on that, yeah. Not in her book, not in the Shakespeare, uh not in the book that she wrote. This is um oh I think it's a different paper. Maybe I'll try and find it and maybe put a link to it. Um because I don't think it was Gwynn. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I just recently read a um a paper to speak to what John was saying, and maybe it'd be good to put a link to, which was great, was around uh I think it was in America in New York where they got jazz musicians to come in and be the reflecting team. Ah in a clinic, which was really I was quite uh blown away by that. I thought that was literally oh that was good.
SPEAKER_04Well, that was good.
SPEAKER_00It was it's a really, really great paper to read. So we recommend it.
SPEAKER_02There's um I'm just thinking the the in our multifamily therapy, um some of the young people uh developed a rap about um they brought and said, We're all gone to MFT, our parents don't like it, and neither do we. As it fits with what you're saying, Carl, about the jesters about things and then coming along and and joining in.
SPEAKER_00Hopefully a bit of irreverence.
SPEAKER_01I think. Should we draw to an end? It's been really touching doing this alongside you all. Thank you so much. I've loved every second of this.
SPEAKER_08It's been a really lovely and enjoyable experience. It has been. Honestly, thank you to you both of having us again. It's just I I feel like I learned so much from these conversations. It's more like a conversation for me, and I I'm really appreciative of it.
SPEAKER_02It's drawn home to me, but when I was reading it on my own, I was fairly clear up to the point of certainty what it meant. And then when you hear other people describing it differently, there's a my I experience a temptation, no, and then allowing yourself to say, well, maybe you know, maybe maybe they found the right words at the right time. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, thank you so much, thank you. Fascinating chapman, yeah, for this work.
SPEAKER_08So she'll still be with us for sure for a while.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely.
SPEAKER_08Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01All the best, everyone.
SPEAKER_04Good night to you. Take care. Bye.