Behind The Music :: All Change
I never expected to be throwing All Change back into the Vicky Leigh Musical Canon so soon. It was originally released as track seven an album called Escapism, which I recorded and released in 2019, under a different artist name before embracing the one I chose for myself. I was so proud of Escapism when I finished it and thought it was my most cohesive work to date, but that idea has since been beaten by the multiple unreleased projects I’ve worked on since. Part of me has always had a heart for the Escapism album and, back in 2022, I had the idea of updating it ~ renaming it to Artificial Escapism and adding three new songs which never got finished in time for the initial 2019 release. I still have intent to revisit and release Artificial Escapism, don’t get me wrong, but why are we here? Why now?
Things happen in life, which cause feelings to be felt. I’ve been feeling a certain kind of way as of late, and then I remembered I wrote a song about those exact feelings back in 2019. Usually I deal with or explore my feelings through writing or making a song, but this time there was no need because one already existed. So I dove deep into my vault, pulled it out and updated it. The process of updating it didn’t take too long thankfully. I cut off about 48 seconds from the beginning, added some hi~hats in there and slightly changed a few lines of lyrics. What you hear in this version is essentially the same as the original 2019 version, with only a few words changed and a new vocal take. I think what took the longest was finding a free autotune plugin to use for the song, but as soon as I found one, I knew I was onto something. Escapism was originally sonically inspired by the music of Alice Glass and Crystal Castles, something I wanted to carry on and keep in the ’24 update of the song. One thing I love most about their music is how MANIC, LOUD and DISTORTED it all is. Sometimes you can’t even make out the lyrics but you can just FEEL the entire song deep within you. So I wanted to try and replicate that in my own music way back then.
Now I wanted to push more, lean into new territory I’d thought about and am deathly aware of, but never tried myself :: Hyperpop. Now, I don’t know if All Change does actually class as a Hyperpop song, you’ll have to tell me that. But when I was researching the genre for my Camille album review, I discovered how being trans and creating creating Hyperpop music go hand in hand ~ they’re inseparable. I’m a trans artist and was re~recording this song during pride month, with an aim to release it in pride month, so why not lean into and seriously attempt a Hyperpop take on All Change? Back in the day the vocals were way more masculine and inspired by Industrial Metal vocals, like that of Marilyn Mason, Gary Numan and Skold. But I’ve changed since then and wanted to try something new, more feminine. And let me tell you, once I added some autotune to those vocals, it gave me a massive sense of gender euphoria and affirmation. So I can see why trans women do and choose Hyperpop.
“Who were to have thought my life would end up like this?”
Way back when I wrote this it was a moment where I took stock of my life. I was 19, my dad had just died, I’d just been through a breakup, my mental health was in an extremely bad place, I’d just come out as trans, and it felt like all my friends were out living their lives together while I was at home going through one existential crisis after another. In my head this song is 19 year old me standing outside my local Wetherspoons, seeing all the kids I went to school with having fun. I’m an outsider looking in, being deathly aware that I don’t belong with them. Gone are the days of playgrounds, now replaced with bars and courting women for sexual intimacy, while I was literally on the floor by myself. It made me sad and feel left out, so I recorded All Change as a way to vent all my feelings back then.
Since then I’ve done the whole pub, nightclub, bottomless brunch circuit and realised all of that really isn’t for me. I’ve also realised I have nothing in common with people who do that, because my idea of drinking is under controlled conditions thanks to childhood trauma, like being at home or on a weekday when it’s not heaving with straight white drunk men with grabby hands. I also think being queer, trans and possibly neurodivergent plays into all that too, which is even more isolating. I truly am not like the normal people of society, something that can be incredible and great at times, but also has its flaws and drawbacks. Such as feeling left out or way behind all those normal people. Even so, I won’t ever fit in or feel comfortable in those environments. Then fast forward to the here and now and I still feel pretty left out. I see my friends going places or doing things without me, and when I do get invited, sometimes I never end up participating for whatever reason. Or when I’m sat at home doing something or wanting to go out for an adventure, I don’t know who to ask because I don’t know who’s available or even interested in what I want to do. I feel like I’m only there when somebody wants or needs me, but when it’s the other way around, who’s there for me? That’s what fuelled the updated version.
The single cover was taken on a walk one night in Autumn, it’d been raining and I was listening to Jagged by Gary Numan. I stopped at a park by where I used to live (and spent the summer of 2013), which is where I took the single cover photo and began writing Burning Wood & Dripping Blood from the Escapism album. At the same time as recording the album I was doing a series of photos called The Art Of Escapism, which were all edited to be black and white — except the one of the lamppost by the park. For some reason I edited it to be very colourful, and called it All Change. Fast forward to now and I’ve decided to go for a glitchy-type effect, which you can see in the Visualiser and teaser videos I’ve posted. But I feel a glitchy effect goes very well with this kind of music.
I also wanted to do a music video for All Change back in the day, make it the lead/main single from Escapism, but sadly never did. The idea would have featured me in a colourful jacket and the car I was learning to drive (which didn’t last long) in a back alley car park at night. And maybe a shot of me walking past the local Spoons looking sad. Now though, I would love to do a video for it in Portsmouth with Spinnaker Tower in the background, all lit up at night. When I was getting into Crystal Castles at seventeen I was visiting family in Portsmouth a lot, and got my first Crystal Castles CD in a second hand record shop there. So I associate their music with that very sad, dark, depressed time in my life. But standing by the sea and looking up at the blue lights of Spinnaker Tower, for some reason, seems to be a visual marker of that time in my life. So I want to take this song and era of mine back to that place, as a grown and happier person. Oh, and I’d love to be sporting a Goth inspired makeup look and wear some proper femme/risqué clothes too.
Something incredible did happen to me when recording this new version though, which was the realisation that women do inspire me. I’ve gone through my career, if you can call it that, being inspired by a myriad of male artists :: Prince, Marilyn Manson, Michael Jackson, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, Jack White III and George Michael. That’s just to name a few. It never felt like women were working their way into my music, but it hit me how three of them went into the inspiration for this song :: Alice Glass, Billie Eilish and Selki Girl. As I’ve mentioned, Alice Glass was an inspiration on Escapism when I recorded it back in 2019, and the closing song on that album was sonically inspired by Billie Eilish too. Fast forward to five years later and I’m totally enamoured by Billie Eilish’s most recent album, Hit Me Hard And Soft, particularly L’AMOUR DE MA VIE [OVER NOW EXTENDED EDIT]. I love that song because it feels like the kind of music Alice Glass would put out and, low and behold, I’ve now taken inspiration from them both and merged them both together. Which makes me love All Change even more because it’s inspired by women all round. And if you really wanna get into my head and hear the specific songs that inspired All Change, go and listen to :: Baptism, Courtship Dating and Through The Hoisery by Crystal Castles, Coiled by Selki Girl, and L’AMOUR DE MA VIE [OVER NOW EXTENDED EDIT] by Billie Eilish.
And finally, when I wrote All Change, I never intended for it to be queer. If anything I wanted it to be a loner anthem, so all the people like me, feeling left out and behind in life, have a song to relate to and feel seen by. Fast forward five years and I’ve done my best attempt at turning it into a Hyperpop song, which I think makes it inherently queer. Plus it was released in pride month as I hoped and intended. So take all those ideas ~ of being trans, neurodivergent, queer, feeling alone and left behind ~ put them together and you get All Change. Which I hope gets suck in peoples heads too, because I think it’s a proper earworm. But hey, nobody is a bigger fan of Vicky Leigh than I am.
All Change is available to purchase on Bandcamp :: Vicky Leigh Music
Or to stream on SoundCloud :: Vicky Leigh Music
Follow my Instagram for updates on my creative endeavours :: vickyxleigh
