For me, 2012 is looking like the year I explore the idea of big happiness, and where it hides, and doesn’t hide. Creative projects will no doubt ensure. As usual, I hope you’ll come along with me on this exploration. I feel lucky to have you still with me after all of these years!

You know those questions you asked me on the Winter Secrets tour, which you wrote on a piece of paper, and I gathered up and kept with me?

They were wonderful questions, but I discovered there were hundreds of them: I thought I’d just start with answers to this first 55 of them.

Some of these are very personal answers: I have been as honest as I can. Thank you for your curiosity, humour and thoughtfullness. (SCROLL DOWN TO READ)

Please enjoy this flashback, of me and Tex singing the Fairytale of New York.

I will write again in the new year.

Clare xoxox

PS – That offer for special discounted Eva tickets for my mailing-list will only last for a very limited time: and remember, this season sold out last time! click here for tix

PPS – If you’re stuck for presents, remember, you can always buy a World Vision Goat, or a Design Files Calendar, or one of those great books by Peggy Frew or Pip Lincoln or Kat Macleod or Marieke Hardy or Catherine Deveny or the Women of Letters, or you can make something out of twine and fig-leaves…really, it’s the thought that counts…

WINTER SECRETS

1. Did your cousin Lady Bowdo team learn dance moves at calisthenics too?

a. I wish I could answer this but to be honest, I really try not to talk with her that much about her “professional life”.

2. Every good parent sings songs to their kids to make them laugh and cheer them up. What is your favourite?

a. I sing them really cheesy songs about themselves, made up to suit the occasion, like “Oooh, who’s the little lady climbing up the tree? Why it’s YOU!” etc. Often I just match their mood, for example, if they’re grumpy, I sing a grumpy-faced song “If you’re grumpy and you know it, say I’m grumpy “YES I’m GRUMPY”. Jack Black is of great inspiration here .

3. Why do boyfriends buy silly cars?

a. Something to do with their willies. I think.

4. What is your biggest winter secret?

a. I already told you! Weren’t you there on the night?

5. How do you get your hair so luscious?

a. That’s nuts. I eat lots of nuts. Also, might have something to do with my Mother and Father. Not sure. I heard once that it’s good to rub olive oil on your hair. I’ve never tried it. Let me know how it goes?

6. How do you get such great curls? What brand of curling wand do you use?

a. Me? Oh yes, that was Leesa, my tour manager. She’s a professional hair-dresser, and carries a dozen curlers wherever she goes. Sorry, she wouldn’t tell me the brand. She is SO secretive about her beauty regime! Leesa!

7. What colour should I ask for when I want a Clare Bowditch-esque hair-do?

a. More about the hair! It changes a bit.

8. Where do you get your great complexion?

a. Thanks! I think that was called “Slapping it on thick, just like we’re sixteen”…

9. Where do you buy your clothes/dresses?

a. Many of my dresses are from a small but brilliant dress-making company called Lazybones, who I discovered in 2009. Some of them are from Boom Shankar. Many of them are old and from old-ish shops. There might even be a few from a fashion shop called K-mart. When I am dressing up, I like Easton Pearson, Mariana Hardwick, Leona Edminston and Akira. We live in fortunate times.

10. How many cats do you need to acquire before you can officially become an old lonely cat lady?

a. Look, the official line is “more than two”. One of my favourite Canadian artists, Emily Carr, was a true cat lady. She would ride them around in prams and stuff. I love people who truly commit to their eccentricity, you know?

11. How can I get my wife to play drums nude?

a. What a lovely compliment to your wife! Just ask her nicely.

12. I am working 9-5, have a teenage daughter, on my ‘own’ with four cats and my gorgeous girl – full of creative ideas but have so little time plus money to do much with my urges, but feeling unfulfilled. Any ideas? Inspirations? You inspire me.

a. Thank you – you inspire me too because that’s a whole lot of creatures you take care of! I completely and utterly understand your question, because it’s something I too struggle with. What I have found, however, is that if I want a happy family, if I want a happy life actually, I need to eek out a tiny weeny pocket of time to just sit and do something I love, every single day. EVERY SINGLE DAY! I am this kind of person – I do need time on my own, or I start talking in a Gollum voice. This was a true challenge when my children were very small: three to seven minutes with a cup of tea, some pen and paper…most days, that’s as much as I got. My children are almost all at school, so now I find I can get a whole hour, and sometimes, when someone is helping out, or the babes are happily occupied, I get whole hours in a row. A book that helped me was one that my friend Rachel Power wrote: it’s called “The Divided Heart”. I was one of the subjects of the book, and yet when I read it I felt so relieved to hear that other artists/mothers also struggled and had found differing levels of acceptance with the feeling that they couldn’t live out their creative lives in the way they wanted, whenever they wanted. There is some kind of poetry in this though, and it can be a bit of what Jack Kornfield calls “A path with heart”.

Some years are easier than others, so as artists, we are wise to always have a long-term view. Also, we are wise to really work hard to find space for our creative spirits, knowing that in the long-term, this will serve us well. For me, I “work hard” by getting up really early, sometimes as early as 5am, just to have that hour to myself. I am a better mother and lover and friend and companion to myself when I do things I love.

Another thing that can help is simply thinking about your ENTIRE ARC of life as a grander creative act: all the kids, the cats, the 9-5, the walk to and from work, the 3pm cuppa, the dinner, choosing your pj’s, watering the garden, being stuck in traffic… I know this can be quite a mental shift, but if you’re an artist (and we all are), then you’re an artist – it’s in every part of every thing you do.

I could talk about this topic for hours… I feel so strongly about it. I wish you every creative happiness. Xxx

13. When you listen to amazing music, what kind of physical sensations do you experience?

a. Have you ever been kissed by a really amazing pair of lips? It’s like that.

14. How many secrets do you have to tell in one boring cold winter?

a. Depends how cold the winter is.

15. Why don’t you make one very last performance in Adelaide with the Eva Cassidy Show? We would love that!

a. Good idea: maybe I will! Perhaps write to Bold jack and let them know you’re keen!

16. Are you moving overseas to live?

a. Probably not. We have spent quite some time in Berlin and Europe over the past three years, it’s true, but for now, while our children are still small and our family and community are all here, we belong in Australia. Funnily enough, I get fonder of it every year. Australia is, actually, pretty amazing. But you already knew this…

17. What is it like getting to be creative all the time?

a. Here’s the truth: I’m not, not in the traditional sense anyway. This week had seven days in it, and I spent six and a half of them struggling with administrative tasks, domestic-duties, training my new assistant, making and receiving phone-calls, memorizing a script, driving in traffic, and trying to complete this long letter to you. I would say that this week, I’ve spent a total of four hours being classically “creative”. Back to my answer before though: if I think about the entirety of life as a grander creative act, then “what is it like to be creative all the time” would be answered with “busy, but happy”.

18. Where do you feel most at home?

a. Forgive the obvious answer, but in my home is where I most feel at home. And you should know this: I live in a humble, rambling, un-renovated and un-glamorous yet partly delightful house just north of the city of Melbourne, with a big garden, lots of fruit trees and good neighbours. One day we will rip up all the metres of concrete, and replace the aluminium windows, and do all the things that every small family hopes to do when they buy their first house. We live near a creek and near a garden market. Best of all, it’s full of people I adore. AND, I like my bed. It is really really comfortable and I have never encourntered a better bed ever, not in any hotel or hostel or tipi.

19. Does becoming a politician interest you or would you fear becoming a Peter Garret?

a. My husband has been telling me for a long time that I was born for politics, and that this is my destiny, which really confuses me. I don’t see where I would fit. And besides, I travel enough as it is. Ask me again in ten years.

b. On the question of Peter Garret: I don’t fear being like Peter, because when it comes down to it (and I have thought about this quite a lot) I think Peter is a good man who works quite hard to make the world slightly better in small ways. I’m not saying I agree with everything he says, I’m just saying I think politics is a hard gig, and you wouldn’t do it unless you felt compelled to contribute in some way. A lot of the work that politicians do, however, is not considered news-worthy (in the same way that a parent’s good work is not considered news-worthy: it’s just people doing the right thing in a kind of a low-key private way). We only see the extremes – extremes does not a complete-story make.

c. What is worth fearing, is the way we forget that politicians are human beings, and the way THEY sometimes seem to forget they are human beings.

d. And again, why, oh why, would you bother becoming a politician and remaining a politician unless you genuinely thought you could make a positive influence somewhere? Why would you spend 140 nights a year away from your family, unless you were a genuinely intense person trying to change the world for the better? Yes, ego and power-hunger etc can play a role…perhaps that is worth considering… but overall, that’s not an easy job.

e. I will think more on this

20. When are you going to join the ALP’s front bench?

a. I thought we just spoke about that?

21. How did you get to be so gorgeous?

a. How did YOU get so gorgeous?

22. When and how did you learn the guitar? I want to learn!

a. I did not start teaching myself guitar or play it in public until I was 24 years old. Before that, I just plucked single strings in the privacy of my bedroom. At 24, however, I became obsessed with the guitar, and started sleeping with it in my bed, and playing it night and morning, and talking to it in my soft cooing voice. We are very close now.

23. What is the meaning of life? What in your opinion is our/your purpose?

a. This is not a question that will allow itself to be answered by a sentence alone: clearly, this is something that is felt, and it’s a different feeling for all of us. My advice would be to just sit still for a while every day, over lots of days, and I think you’ll know. Mainly, though, remember that there is an answer, even if you don’t know it quite yet.

b. Lately I’ve been wondering, like you, what my purpose is. I too struggle to articulate it, but I think it’s something to do with remembering happiness, and passing it on.

24. What is your favourite high school memory?

a. There are many, but one of them is the time I discovered a secret attic, and hid in there one lunch-time, making up stories in my head.

25. What does grace mean to you?

a. It means Jeff Buckley. You?

26. Could you be anymore brilliant, inspiring and entertaining?

a. Thank you! You = come again!

b. You are.

27. Do you have a cat or two?

a. This is really sad, but we don’t have any pets, because we are a traveling family. My wish for two years has been that we traveled less and could acquire two dogs, two chickens, two cats, one fat rabbit and seven guinie pigs. Instead, we have a garden full of fruit-trees and lots of native-bird visitors. We also have lots of cats who think our back-yard is their back-yard, but when I go to say hello, they run away.

28. Heard you speak five languages, what are they?

a. This is simply not true! I speak nine languages! When I’m drunk, I speak ten! I know, I know.

29. Where the hell did the inner Bogan come from?

a. Born this way.

30. Is Lanie Lane related to Dita Von Tease?

a. I think so, although I’ve never brought it up.

31. Do you sing any death metal?

a. Yes I do. Do you?

32. I listen to Radio National and my daughters say I’m a dag and boring. Is that true?

a. Your daughter’s will one day do the same, and suffer the same cruel jibes from their own children. Stand strong, little woman.

33. Did you hear me singing out of tune?

a. I did! It was lovely.

34. Where did your lovely butterflies come from on your dress?

a. Hmm, I think it was the Melbourne zoo? I can’t really remember…I’m sorry.

35. How do you do all these gigs with three young children? Where do you find the time to write songs with children? How do you do it all? *

a. I don’t do it all – let’s make that very clear, very very clear.

b. My children sometimes treat my song-writing like a new baby in the house: they love it, on the one hand, but they also want to poke it a bit, and they want to compete a little bit, and make sure you know that they were here first, and they are your favourite.

c. For this reason, I have lots of tricks to distract my children into letting me write a song.

i. One I occasionally use is called YELLING AT THEM to stop making so much BLOODY NOISE, I’ve got a HIT to write, don’t you kids want CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR FOR GOODNESS SAKES. (This worked the first time, but never since.)

ii. I hand them each three icy-poles and make them to go outside to eat it and then I secretly write a song and they’re none the wiser.

iii. I rely heavily on the Play School Golden Hour

iv. I don’t expect myself to have a clean house all the time

v. I live by the rule “It only takes two minutes to write a song. It doesn’t have to be good”. Not at the beginning anyway.

d. The children also have a father, who takes good care of them.

e. I also have a Mother who helps a lot

f. I also have a mother-in-law, her name is Jenny, and she helps too

g. We have a babysitter one night a week, and sometimes we use this time just to go out into the shed and play and record music.

h. The point being, I ask for help when I need it.

i. I do not expect myself to write good songs, I just write. This is how it begins.

j. I do what any working mother does: the best I can, in the hope that one day in a golden shower of light I will wake up and be extremely perfect. The older I get, the more I realize that there are better things in life than being perfect. You?

36. What is the best tip for songwriters?

a. Just write the fucking song.

37. Where you ever afraid to follow your heart and dreams?

a. Yes, very much so. That is why I released my first solo album at the age of 27, instead of 21.

38. When did you decide to mix your comedic side with your singing?

a. The same time I decided to have eyes with my face, and fingers with my hands. I can’t really remember…

39. After having an accident at work, which we won’t go into now, I was sent to a psychologist. This psychologist advised me that I was normal. Of course I was devastated. What am I to do?

a. Being told you’re “normal” can be quite shocking at first. Try not to take it personally – it’s quite common.

b. If you’re still in doubt, get a second opinion.

c. Try an art therapist –they’ll sort you out.

40. Is that really you on twitter on Q&A? Is that the only time you get to relax as your kids are in bed?

a. Do you mean the occasional tweets? Yes, that really is me!

b. Generally yes, that is my time to relax. I’m not a great relaxer though, to be honest: I like to “do” all the time. This is improving with age.

41. Do your children inspire your songwriting and do you think they will in the future?

a. Very much so – songs like “Lucky Life” especially.

b. To be honest, my children inspire my everything: not just the song writing, the whole “life” thing.

42. Do you find working on “702” creative?

a. I really enjoyed filling in for a week in Summer, yes. I had a great producer called Serpil, who took care of so many of the “nuts and bolts”, and allowed me to concentrate on the story-telling. I enjoyed it.

43. Do you get asked to play watch over me since the Aria performance and does it piss you off getting asked to play another persons songs?

a. I do occasionally get asked to play “Watch Over Me”, which is the song I sang with Bernard Fanning and Kasey Chambers at the 2006 ARIA awards. No, this does not piss me off, not at all. I don’t sing it though: it’s Bernard’s song.

44. Apart from your own songs, what do you think is the most beautiful song ever written?

a. The same one that is written and re-written every day: true. We don’t always get to hear it, but it’s quite possible that right this second, the greatest song ever written is being rewritten, even better.

45. Has Leonard Cohen inspired any new songs?

a. Yes, he most certainly has.

46. I am not musical – how do I encourage my daughters (6yrs) musical dreams?

a. There are lots of ways to do this. Sounds like she/they are already musically curious? Find them a good enthusiastic teacher, or a singing program

b. If there is no music program at your kid’s school, encourage them to contact The Song Room, to find out more about how to get a music teacher into your school.

c. Contact the Music Council of Australia for more tips on the above.

d. Remember that when you start paying some attention to your musicality (we all have it), you will inadvertently encourage your daughters to do the same. Go join a choir, play music in the house, protect them from awful music as much as you can, and dance a lot. This will encourage their musical dreams.

47. Where does your inspiration come from? Your own experiences? *

a. Much of it comes from just falling in love with things all the time – with new and old songs and with amazing friends and random things that make me feel happy and alive.

b. It can come from having my heart broken, which happens a lot too, just in little ways. The first Noble Truth, the one about suffering…that is true for all of us I think.

c. Yes, my own experiences, struggles, curiosities, joys – naturally, this propels me forward.

48. How are you so incredible talented and able to read into our hearts without even knowing our story? You have touched me deeply.

a. That is very kind – thank you so much for saying that. I don’t believe I am especially talented, but I have been loved, and I have been hurt, and I know these things deeply, and music gives us a chance to remember the things we share in common I guess.

49. Is there a secret to brewing the perfect cup of tea?

a. Here is the tea that is rocking my world each morning at the moment, which is a combination of tea-tricks inherited from my friends Rita, Kirsty and Danielle. I take 1tsp loose-leaf early grey, 1 tsp loose-leaf, two slices of ginger, pop it in a pot, put a tea cosy on it, let it brew for a good five minutes, and then when it’s lovely and dark, I pour it into a big mug and add some milk (nut, soy, cow, whatever you love the most) and then, oh my, I’m home.

50. Did you get it wrong very much before you got it right?

a. Why just this morning in fact! And every morning! Noon! After noon! Night! I am always playing around with getting it wrong before I get it right, and never feeling that I got it right anyway. Oh life!

51. What do you say if you walk into your 16yr olds bedroom and they are making out on the bed with their boy/girlfriend? Is it different reaction depending on whether it’s a boy or a girl?

a. Regardless of gender, I think my reaction would probably be a bit of the old “Dearie me! Oh! Dear! OH!” with a bit of a quick turn around/accidental bang-into-wall-type action. This, at least, is what MY Dad did when he walked in on me pashing my boyfriend when I was 16. It looked heaps worse than it was, Dad.

52. What books do you have on stage? Those ones, next to the teapots.

a. I believe it was Linda Goodman’s Love Signs! Curiously, this same book recently inspired the album “Love Signs” by the VERY amazing Monique Di Mattina. Whoah.

53. What is you favourite colour?

a. I love them all. Blue was very much my favourite colour as a child though. I DO love it. But yellows, reds, Frida Kahlo colours are what’s rocking my world this week!

54. If you were a farmyard animal, which would you be and why?

a. You know, I always really liked Wilbur from Charlotte’s web. Not just any pig, Wilbur the pig.

55. How did you and Fanny get so good at dancing?

a. Just luck.

“Eva is exceptional.” Chris Boyd, The Australian

On this note, we are DOUBLE super excited to announce, as a special Christmas gift to the CB Gang, generously discounted tickets ($10 off each ticket) if you use THIS LINK to make your purchase! This is a very limited two-week season only, so this offer is especially for you, to make sure you don’t miss out on tickets this time!

For those of you who want to know a bit more about the show, please read the below press-release. For everyone else, just scroll down to the bottom of the page for dates/times, and that Christmas link again!

Clare will write to you personally before Christmas.

CB CENTRAL xoxoxox

*  *  *

After a sell-out debut season in Melbourne in 2011, EVA returns by popular demand to the Athenaeum Theatre for a limited season only!

Eva Cassidy was born in 1963 and died 33 years later in 1996 leaving a legacy of extraordinary arrangements of ballads, sung with her hauntingly beautiful voice, described in the Washington Post as “…so pure, so strong and so passionate it should have found a home just about anywhere.”

And find a home it did! When the BBC played Somewhere Over The Rainbow four years after her death, Eva Cassidy’s records shot to the top of the charts and they are still selling to this day.

It is no wonder that one of Australia’s great talents, Clare Bowditch, should have heard this voice and was hooked immediately.

Tales from the Life of Eva Cassidy, co-written by Clare Bowditch and Jim Macpherson, is two hours of pure joy. Clare tells the story as only a fellow artist could – with passion and innate knowledge, sharing many of the same experiences.

Featuring Ashley Naylor and The Blues Alley Band, included in the song list is Fields Of Gold, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Hallelujah I Love Him So and the Gospel hit, Wade In The Water

EVA- Tales From The Life Of Eva Cassidy SEASON

Tue, 7th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 8:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

Wed, 8th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 8:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

Thu, 9th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 8:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

Fri, 10th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 8:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

Sun, 12th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 5:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

Tue, 14th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 8:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

Wed, 15th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 8:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

Thu, 16th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 8:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

Fri, 17th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 8:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

Sun, 19th Feb, Melbourne, VIC Athenaeum Theatre 8:00pm

BUY TICKETS Box office: 03 9650 1500

The Most Intense Interview of my Life and Why I Am Changing My Name.

Hello there.

It’s now 2011, which I hereby non-officially declare 2011: The International Year of Beauty, Pleasure and Peace.

Isn’t it strange, after all these years of songs and Open Letters, there are so many fascinating stories I’ve never gotten around to telling you?

Well, with this in mind, I’ve decided that the 2011 Series of Open Letters will be MORE REVEALING THAN EVER BEFORE!!!! Let’s even call them Very Open Letters.

Here goes.

If you’re looking for me on the night of Sunday March 20^th 2011, I’ll be inside your TV, as the subject of ABC’s Compass’s “Life’s Big Questions” series; a half-hour edit of a two and a half hour interview I did last October. Already Julian Morrow and Matt Preston have been on. Coming up also are Lindy Chamberlain, Phillip Nitschke and Rolf de Heer.

For the record, the “Life’s Big Questions” interview was The Most Intense Interview of My Life. I barely spoke for two days afterwards. Here’s why: attempting to publicly articulate ones deepest held beliefs, feelings and confusions about life, death, God and family, is torturous.

It brought up a question that has often pained me about being a “Public Person” (PP): how do I tell my story, whilst also protecting the privacy of my beloveds, who are often central to those stories?

For example, I come from a “highly religious family”. Big Time. I can say this to you because it’s all about to be revealed on Compass anyho. Also, this is no great secret: anyone who ever visited our family home would be aware of the presence of child-sized statues of Jesus and Mary and Joseph, and not just on Christmas, people.

It’s a fact I’m rather proud of: I had intelligent parents, who bothered to ask and question and think a lot about Life’s Big Questions, including The Existence of God.

Our “deeply religious family”, however, is something I’ve rarely discussed publicly in any detail, mainly because it’s hard to do well. Happy to talk for myself, that’s fine. But in any large family, a variety of different and occasionally conflicting opinions can exist. Naturally, in our homes, we have these discussions, or lovingly choose not to, and live pretty peacefully with the diversity of opinions. It’s just that in an interview, when these Big Questions come, these nuances or sensitivities can come across clumsily, and stories out of context can become like name-tags, i.e. “Half-Catholic with Buddhist Leanings” or “Jewish, but Still Drives Car on Shabbaz” or “God? Isn’t that for BABIES?” or “Presents as a Complete Religious Nut yet Every Third Comment Makes A Lot Of Sense!”

Understanding a creation as complex as a human being, and then a system as familiar and yet unique as a family…that requires time, and trust and love also. So where in the public domain of “headlines” is there time and trust and space and the loving intent to gestate or sit with this kind of everyday complexity? Discussing any kind of difficulty, like the fact that I had a nervous breakdown when I was twenty-one, can easily turn into fodder for gossip, or headlines, or misunderstandings, or sensationalism, which is I’ve never mentioned it at all. I mean, I will, and soon, because it’s one of the best things that ever happened to me, but it’s taken ten years as a PP to feel secure enough to mention it at all! Because who wants to be known as their most dramatic stories? No one. No one!

Which brings me back to The Most Intense Interview of My Life. Looks like an interview, sounds like an interview, surely I’m used to them by now? Well, here’s a few of the questions it brought up for me, questions I am yet struggling to find time to completely answer:

How do I talk about the very great influence my parent’s faith has had on our family, on my own life, whilst also trying to explain my feelings of alienation within that same faith? And how, when asked, do I “publicly” discuss my personal experience of losing my sister Rowena, without disrupting the normalcy of my beloved family members, who are out there living their lives privately and may not appreciate strangers knowing personal experiences of the family they belong to? How does a PP discuss such an extreme experience, without encouraging sensationalism? Or in talking about her, am I honouring her life? What if I don’t have it all worked out myself – what then? What if I cry, as I often still do? How do I talk about her whilst also making it clear that it’s probably not OK for strangers to ask me about her in random situations, like right before a show, or in IKEA? How do I talk openly without adversely influencing or bringing gossip to, or impinging upon, the precious and private experiences of my children and my husband? How do I protect their freedom to choose what they want to reveal about themselves, and to whom? Do I have a right to tell just my side of the story – is that legitimate? Is that right?  Or is that unforgivably selfish, because we’re all connected, aren’t we? Are artists selfish? Or noble?

And isn’t it all a little bit late to be asking these kinds of questions?

To be honest, I’ve been struggling with them since “The Beginning” of my life as a PP. Before, in fact: variations on this theme have been present since I was a young adult, and first acknowledged how desperately I loved singing and songwriting and writing and adventure and that if I wanted to have an accomplished creative life, I was probably going to have a public life also. Which overwhelmed me. Which is why it took me until I was 27 to release my first solo album, Autumn Bone. And why I avoided using my front-face on posters for the first few years of being a musician. It’s why, once I’d gotten over that little phobia, I decided I would be myself, both on and off stage (which simply means, what you see is what you get. Sometimes, however, I do like a bit of “character acting”…) I mean, who has the time or energy to go through the bollocks of keeping up impossible façades? Seriously…Lady Gaga must be EXHAUSTED!

Yet here I often find myself, paralysed as I try to reconcile dual desires: the first, a desire to protect myself and my family, and the second, the compulsion to do something dangerous: to tell incredibly honest stories, knowing that “risky emotional honestly” is the main tool in an artists’ kit, and that in taking time to reflect and then “telling it like it is”, artists offer comfort and deep pleasure and inspiration to a world sorely in need of all three. I know this, because I too need these things, and nature and art never fail to provide them for me.

So in a way, although there is pride in carrying a family name publicly, there is also a bit of guilt and fear, because you affect other family members lives, in a way that they didn’t ask for.

That’s why I’ve decided to protect my family, and change my name. I haven’t spoken to my lawyers yet but I’m planning to change my name from Clare Bowditch to just CL@RE.

That’s right, CL@RE.

Actually, why don’t we just make it easy for everyone and spell CL@IRE, with an “I”, which is the way most people spell my name anyway*.

I also think the addition of an @ very much increases the chances of getting the attention of commercial radio executives, who will play my songs…even though I am now 35 years old I have never heard a 35 year old woman’s voice in a song on commercial radio.  Have you? Oh wait, Fergie, perhaps Fergie. Madonna maybe? Anyway, just call me CL@IRE.

So what have we learnt today? What have I learnt by surviving The Most Intense Interview of My Life?

In the end, what I have learnt is that the only thing I can ever do, the only way to avoid total creative paralysis, is to commit to speaking only on behalf of myself: not my entire family, not my gender, not all mothers, not all singer-songwriters, not all Clare’s, just myself.

At the same time, I must always be nice to my family, and make them lots of cakes.

Now that I’ve begun talking publicly about these kinds of things, I may as well continue. That, after all, is what Open Letters are for: I talk about my thoughts, you use the comments box to talk about your thoughts, and we both learn something more in the process.

Love,

Clare

* I am not really changing my name. Sorry to mislead you. And for the record, there is NO “i” in this type of Clare. In fact, my band and I have even written a song to this effect, called “There’s no “i” in Clare”. It was inspired by this:

Here is the beginning of the end of that promise, via video. Warning: this video involves very pretty young women in nurses uniforms.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqJICmrsDB0

If you’d like to learn such “moves” from us IN PERSON, you can, by registering to be part of the Your Part Competition, where you go in the running for a pre-show tutorial with myself and my delicious “Lady Garden”. Entry is open to anyone purchasing a ticket for our upcoming shows via www.clarebowditch.com (or via the below links). QUEENSLAND ENTRIES CLOSE AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT! And just to make things very clear, this tour will be your last chance to see The New Slang in it’s full eight-piece glory (excl. Cairns) for quite some time.

In other news, we’re honoured to have been nominated for three ARIA Awards: Best Female, Best Alternative Adult, Best Mixer. Victor Van Vugt, for your work, we salute you.

In other other news, sometimes promotional opportunities go wrong, like the time Tim and I accidentally started a small fire at NOVA FM in Melbourne. Click here-ish…

If you like MDA, and want to let us know, feel free to either tell twenty people, or purchase twenty copies. Either/or. It’s up to you.

Much Love,

Clare

PS -- Do you work in the corporate world? Do you sometimes wear skirts? Then please allow me to introduce you to my friend Fabian Dattner. She’s an extraordinary woman, she hangs with world leaders, and she’s running a fairly major “Women In Leadership” course this year. Yes, we’re all bigger than the money: learn how the words “vision” and “business’ can sit nicely together. The program is called Compass: click here for more.

PPS -- We are now just about 6000 people strong on Twitter. Come join the party: www.twitter.com/clarebowditch

Thank you. x

For me, one of these things was conducting a lengthy interview with PM Julia Gillard in a mahogany and hansard-filled office. But there you go.

The invitation came from Myspace Today a couple of weeks ago. Of course, you never think these things are actually going to happen, but after a change of time and city, there I found myself, in most impressive company.

I decided to take a risk early, but challenging her on the lack of inspiration we felt about this election, and in doing so I also asked her to take a risk, and speak from the heart. For the most part, she responded openly, with some surprising answers too.

We discussed everything from the Arts policy, “Where is Peter Garrett?”, our Environment and how we can change our thinking here, Independent Midwives “Why are they losing their jobs?”, what young people look for in a leader, where the major parties have let us down, and whether Labour have gravely underestimated community sentiment in re: to mental health. I quizzed her on same-sex marriage, and of what she would expect from Australia were she herself seeking emergency refuge. The list goes on. My only searing regret is that had no chance to discuss the lack of clear and worthy focus on Indigenous Australians in this election, and the reasons behind that. I will have more, I’m sure, but for today this is the one I most wish I had been able to question her on.

Naturally, I also had to introduce her to my lucky cricket ball, ‘fess up about my now infamous Julia Gillard Impersonation at Splendour in the Grass.  I did also ask for some guidance on her “Karate Chop Hands“. The question of whether she will join my cover band with Leigh Sales (still in negotiations) will have to wait until after the election.

This will air Tuesday night via Myspace Today: register to catch the stream.

It will go down as one of the most memorable days of my life. I’m exceedingly grateful for the opportunity to do this. My Father would have been beyond proud.

I would gladly have also interviewed Tony Abbott, however I am told he was “unavailable”.

Clare x

This is us performing a little bit of us performing David Bowie’s Fashion at Splendour, filmed by Triple J x