MISSY recounts the creation of Part IV of the Ekpyrosis suite of songs.
“The song was written when I started to experience sudden major hearing loss. I had booked in a consultation with a specialist, and an MRI scan. I was about to spend most of my savings, and had no idea what was going on. It sounded as if I was wearing earplugs, so I could hear my own voice internally, but everything out in the world was totally muffled. With everyone wearing masks while talking out in public, there was no hope for lip reading either.
My hearing is a huge part of my identity because it lets me create music, so I was struggling with the potential loss of identity, and having been sick for months, I was feeling completely lost.
The day I woke up and couldn't hear the sounds of the room around me was the day I wrote this song - a panicked churning out of music just in case things progressively got worse.
I honestly just felt like a sack of shit. I felt completely undeserving of the love that I've been given by the people in my life so I wrote this song. It started out languishing in self-pity, but eventually progressed into a total outburst of gratitude. The kind that makes you feel so tiny in comparison to how huge the emotions feel.
The idea that “Something must be right in the world because you are happy and healthy and that's all I could really wish for. I might be falling apart at the seams, but you are fine. I'll strive to be fine too.” It might seem silly but I literally can't even write this paragraph without tearing up, it's a feeling that deeply overwhelms me and is hard to describe. Hence why the title is so unbelievably long!
Spoiler alert: my hearing was fixed up, I kept some of the original vocals despite how sick I sound (my voice is damaged now and I sort of permanently sound sick anyway). I was able to finish up the production for this track once I could hear high frequencies again.
My mother graced this track with her skills and played the piano for me which was recorded (since we live in different cities) by my lovely sister Calla.