I find relaxation and mindfulness apps make me feel very aggressive - and it turns out I am not the only one. I wanted to lead people into that feeling. That said, I have had a few people say they find the song quite relaxing anyway, which is interesting.
The song also comes from anger. Social care in the UK has been undermined and destroyed over the past years, particularly under “austerity”. The Government has found the money for the appalling waste that is track and trace & some of the contracts for PPE supply, but not enough to pay the professionals who are the ones that make things work. The services are under an intolerable, but imposed, strain. It’s a choice that has been made. The result is when I have been seeking professional help it has been suggested I should try downloading a mindfulness app. This has happened more than once. It is sadly, often, the only option on offer - completely down to lack of resources. Yet I know with time and money these service could offer more.
The song’s music began back 2010 as a track with no specific purpose and it had the temporary title Fun Squidgy Song. When I came up with the idea for Just Relax I found it again and thought it woud make a deeply inappropriate soundtrack for a relaxation track. I then added in the idea, “what would a Throbbing Gristle Relaxation Tape sound like” - and it went from there.
Here is a video with a snippet of the original kernel of a song and the final version. For visual interest the video has some images and two re-purposed videos - one a rare outing for Lizard Brain Live (2017) - the other a video designed for the track Nothing To Say but never used.
Cheers, Mark