Balance

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I think it’s a real privilege actually, to be able to listen to a song from ten years ago and go – look at the difference now.

I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. Spraggan has been very open about her OCD, so perhaps it’s no surprise there’s a song here with that title and that it’s quite so brutally honest with lyrics including: ‘I doubt I learned to think before I speak’ and ‘Brain’s not normal you might have noticed … I’m still a little temperamental. God is in the TV is an online music and culture fanzine founded in Cardiff by the editor Bill Cummings in 2003. When Spraggan released opening track Everything Changeslast year incorporating her X Factor hit Beer Fear it wasn’t quite clear what she was referring to when she sang: ‘I think of things that happened 10 years ago and I feel much better letting them go.With a bridge in which Spraggan’s voice breaks while promising Caroline’s mum that “the kindness remains”, it’s sure to be a meaningful ballad that people hopefully take to heart. Lucy was the first contestant in X Factor history to score a Top 40 single and album before the live shows aired.

While songwriting has always been her strong suit, the songs on this record are a far cry from “Last Night”.

It makes me laugh, because truly – you just hold ont something if you feel like that’s what you’re supposed to do, and you fucking do it. Some of the topics tackled by Lucy are incredibly difficult and tend to be evaded within the media, but she’s unafraid to explore them and her transparency continues to serve her well – from ‘Cocaine’, which appears to tell the tale of a relationship breakdown due to drugs, to ‘Caroline’. She’s been steadily creating, which is something that the industry at large almost seems a little too eager to forget. Despite the fact that Lucy Spraggan’s current reality is a world away from the one that inspired “Beer Fear”, she says it actually makes her feel connected to her past self.

Last but certainly not least is ‘ Cost of Living’ – a melodious track that features a combination of vocals and spoken word from Lucy, as she runs through the shared experience of being a human being in the 21st century. All of those albums are a part of my collection of music, whereas all these tattoos are a collection of my existence. I’m 32 in a couple of weeks, I don’t think that’s old, but I’m older than I was when I was writing songs at 12. It’s a personal journey played out in song and although far from plain sailing – title song Balance sees her //‘Sleeping in an empty bed / I’m gonna leave my ex on read / Listen to what my therapist said’// – one that treads a path to where she stands today as an artist. Spraggan certainly doesn’t spare herself or her flaws, and chooses instead to showcase how she’s grown to either work on them or embrace them.When asked what memory or song she feels such a deep connection to, Spraggan immediately brings up Emily Sandé’s “Read All About It”, a song she had to sing during the X Factor UK.