Content warning: this story contains discussion of domestic violence.
You could easily listen to the new record from Jessica Lea Mayfield, Sorry Is Gone, and only connect with its very outermost layer – with its smooth production, and its gentle guitar work, and Mayfield’s lilting, whiskey and honey voice. Indeed, taken at first glance, Sorry feels lighter than Mayfield’s last record, the grunge-indebted Make My Head Sing, and on songs like ‘Meadow’ and the titular ‘Sorry Is Gone’, she sounds happier than she has in years; freer.
Definitely coming into womanhood has changed things for me
But however unfettered Sorry might sound, it was no aimless creative jaunt, and talking to the gently-spoken Mayfield, it quickly becomes clear that she was never going to write this album for anyone other than herself.
“I wasn’t going to make an album that I didn’t wanna make,” she says, her voice going firm. “That was the thing: I had people trying to herd me like cattle, so I definitely stood my ground until I had what I wanted.
“Definitely coming into womanhood has changed things for me. I used to feel very confused and very lost and puppy-like. People would tell me, ‘Do this, do that’, and I was like, ‘I’ll do this but my gut tells me that I shouldn’t’. And now I’m old enough to know that your stomach is the first thing you should trust.”
Mayfield is a survivor of domestic violence. Her struggles, hardships and growth make up the backbone of Sorry – the title itself is an acknowledgement that Mayfield is done with apologising for the blame that has been heaped on her in the past; that she is, to borrow a line from the album’s title track, “done excusing myself.”
I know there are other people that feel the way that I feel and have been treated the way I’ve been treated in life
“I keep getting more personal [with my songwriting] and I question it every time but I realise that when I question it, it means I need to overcome it and let it out.
“I know these are emotions that need to be shared and felt. I’m not alone. I know there are other people that feel the way that I feel and have been treated the way I’ve been treated in life … You know, I don’t want to hide that: I wanna be as real and as human as I can be.”
There are, Mayfield readily admits, some people who have already been a little “scared off” by Sorry’s subject matter. But as far as she is concerned, the record is no funeral dirge; nor is it a long slog through ten miles of bad road. It is, at its heart, a record about rebirth. “People think that it’s a dark record, but actually, I’m on the other side of it – I have blossomed.
“I guess now people think I’ll be doing interviews and the interviewer will be like ‘Are you okay? I’m so sorry.’ But actually, I can talk about this now, which means I’m on the other side and I’m okay – but for the past however many years, I was not okay, and I was pretending.”
The ‘Sorry Is Gone’ video, released in July of this year, opens with Mayfield in a yellow convertible, driving quite literally into the sunset, and it ends with her in a pink, thin fabric hood, staring straight into camera, her eyes wide open. It is as clear a statement of her new found independence as could be imagined – an unashamed acknowledgement of self.
“People put their own symbolism into the video,” Mayfield says. “They say, ‘Well, like, you’re in the car; you’re driving away from all your problems.’ Certainly both of the new videos line up with the theme of the album which is, ‘I’m free!’”
Sometimes the record is oblique, its imagery technicolour and smeared. But at other times, Mayfield sharpens her talents down to fine points, and captures years of trauma and pain in a single line. “There’s a line in ‘Meadow’ that goes: ‘the cold hard truth is I love you too much,’” she says. “That was [Mayfield’s ex-partner’s] excuse for why he’d been terrible to me.”
I am my own advocate
Ultimately, everything comes down to whether Mayfield is now more confident, happy and above all else, safe. “Yes, all of the above,” she says. “It’s sort of like, emotionally things are good and I’m safe and stable – but at the same time I’ve been through a lot of life events that have been coming at me all at once. But even with everything happening, my safety and freedom are irreplaceable. I feel like I can handle everything better because [I have] my safety and freedom.”
As a result, Mayfield has learned to lean into her independence; to definitively and unashamedly embrace herself, and all that she is capable of. “That’s the thing with this album too: I am my own advocate,” she says.
“Music is my way of talking about things. I definitely open up with my instruments first, before I do with my friends and family. It’s usually talking to myself alone in a room with a guitar that helps me understand things. I have to be my own friend; my own advocate.
“I mean, on my last album, I was really clammed up and in this really dark space and I couldn’t talk about anything that was happening. It was the heaviest album I ever made and it was the heaviest point in my life emotionally. I couldn’t speak so I was saying things with my guitar. With this album, I could finally open up and talk.”
Sorry Is Gone is out Friday September 29.
