Tomorrow Nostalgia

The making of, a video diary of sorts & looking back at past dreams of the future

Tomorrow Nostalgia could maybe the first song Claire and I wrote more or less completely in the room together. It was also maybe one of the most fun writing experiences on the album. We were up at the RCC Letterkenny in Co. Donegal, doing a writing residency there. It was early in the year so it coincided with funding deadline times. Finding ourselves behind, we ended up compromising a lot of our time amongst amazing synthesisers and really expensive gear trying to write application jargon and then transition into creative mode and write music. Anyone who knows this struggle knows that they are completely different head spaces. The day we got the applications in and got finished with them we really needed to shake it up a bit. It probably wasn’t going to inspire us enough to just pick up ye old acoustic guitar and cello after that. We were in need of silliness, of something that was gonna feel free.

We decided to venture into new territory and get a beat loop going on Logic Pro. I have some videos here that really make me laugh of that time in the studio. We started with a very fast and ridiculous beat that you will see I could not keep up with. Claire keeps mentioning wanting to be ‘straight up for once!’ whatever that means. It’s also interesting to me how in the flow we are until the camera is turned on either of us and we realise this is being recorded, perceived. When being creative, the brain switches between those two brain states - the state that is tuning in, transmitting an expression - and then the one that realises or accepts that the expression could be perceived by someone else. Although not always the case, thanks to the length of time that we’ve been working together and how vulnerable we’ve had to be with each other while making music, when it is just the two of us in the room we are very often able to be in the first brain state together, as if nobody is watching. But it’s funny to see when the camera enters the room in these videos the flow state changes. Either of us are suddenly aware that the work is or will be perceived by an outsider and that’s when the self-consciousness kicks in. Who is watching? In these moments, the camera represents you guys now reading this newsletter.

We thankfully got away from this beat and into something more chill. Then we had to build a bit around it. I was totally engrossed in playing this following riff and only realised the cheesiness of the end of the part once the camera was turned on me. (we actually kept it anyway)

Then came the dance moves.. these still have to be worked into the live show.

After a guitar part was also added then we found the lyrics. We’re in between being serious and joking the entire time, laughing at everything and not really knowing if it’s because the melody or lyric we just added is so great or so bad. The way I sang ‘problem is’ here just hit the funny bone. I’m writing this not having a clue if this was a ‘you had to be there’ moment or not. It probably was. Oh well I think especially in collaboration this is what you call peak creative flow.

We wrote the lyrics in the room too which was very new and maybe added to the more light-hearted approach. They became closer to what you would say to someone in conversation rather than the inner-most feelings of the heart. I’m not sure why we decided to write about teenage times, maybe it was being back in Claire’s homeland of Letterkenny. We each took a little while alone to write a verse. Mine was the first verse (about the Punto and the narrow ditches) and Claire’s was the second (about the girls sending pics). We went back into memory, where it’s easier to be ‘straight up for once’ with a bit of distance from the events. Then we figured out the chorus together after both verses had been written. I like that the chorus feels like a riddle.

This is the demo we made in those two days:

‘Spent too long dreaming about tomorrow

Now tomorrow’s in the past.

Problem is if the moment’s already over

It’s never going to last.’

I’ve always been someone to jump ahead into visions for the future. When I was a teenager I dreamed very hard about what it would be like to be making a life in music. It was all I wanted to do - to sing. Yet I had at that time a very idealistic image of it. A one dimensional image that you see from watching people before you from the outside. Now that I’m actually living the dream - including driving myself around from A to B in my own car (VW Golf swit swoo), the dream has changed gradually and almost entirely.

I’ll be forever grateful to innocent teenage dreams and visions for placing us in that room there in the RCC, making the song Tomorrow Nostalgia, laughing, shaking our booties on the office chair. The same vision that has helped us get to the place where people are listening to our music, coming to shows. It’s really quite surreal. However, I never could have foreseen the reality what of doing this job as a ‘career’ in the year 2026 would be like - the mind melt of self-promotion, funding application deadlines, exposing yourself and your innermost thoughts and feelings to the wolves and having to stand confidently behind them, long drives in sweaty cars on no sleep, doing 1 million jobs at once. Add on the growing disadvantage of not being a robot and just being a human. It has all at times become a little too multi-dimensional. Sometimes I want to bring it back to the one-dimensional image 14 year old me had of a lady writing songs with her friends, singing her heart out on stage and getting paid for it. Simply that. Maybe the key is to hone in on the original vision, that’s the thing that’s got us here and that’s the most important thing to nurture and protect.

Tomorrow Nostalgia’s little riddle is a bit mysterious but I think it’s getting at something similar to what I’m talking about above. Ideals for the future that brought the most excitement in teenage years don’t always work out as expected (and you might be glad they didn’t). Moments and life achievements that bring the most joy and purpose can never be predicted. Once those moments are gone, they are gone - so when IN the moment it can be good to be reminded to hold it for what it is - disappointment, boredom, joy, stress, warts, beauty and all. Though perhaps as a teenager I imagined this life in music a lot differently, as I’ve gotten older and truly lived the dream, the therapeutic side of music seen in the videos above - the part of the work that truly connects us with other people - has become the most important.

Looking back on the moments of innocence in teenage years, constantly looking forward to the future, sometimes I want to put myself back in there, give myself a shake and say HOLD THIS MOMENT FOR WHAT IT IS. Yeah ok, you don’t have your license yet, but it’s fun driving around on a learner permit on country roads where the guards stop you twice a month and say ‘So you’re doing your test next week then love are ya? Good on you’. Though at the time I couldn’t wait to get out and explore the world, I’m nostalgic for those moments now. Maybe this song is also calling in ourselves from the future - nostalgic for the 2026 post album release stress coming down into this newsletter saying HOLD THIS MOMENT FOR WHAT IT IS.

See you at a gig soon perhaps? 2026 TOUR TICKETS - would love to see you !!

Bye bye for now,

Laura