Enrico
Thank you, Lyn for being with us today.

Lyn
it’s lovely to be here with you,

Enrico
we have been knowing each other now for about 15 years. But thinking about you and reading your bio, the questions that come to my mind to ask you really could be a list that never stop. So, I will just possibly ask you, how that happen for you to became a songwriter.

Lyn
Well I think it it was part of who I, my genetics part of my makeup from the moment I could talk, there was music in our house, a lot, because my dad played piano, drums, push button accordion, and my mom played when she was much younger bagpipes, and sometimes when my uncle visited that would have a bagpipe off, and that was mad. But she also played piano accordion. And my dad would play for the old time dances with his old man and his brother. And so I kind of had this musical influence around me for a long period of time growing up, and it just was quite a natural progression for me to start creating music. Even before I could play an instrument. I would be making songs out when I was about four or five or six. And mom would ask what that song was, she said, “What song are you singing darling?” and I’m like, I don’t know, I just made it up. And then as I progressed, of being trouble for singing in class, you know, I might be doing quiet work, and I’d find myself humming. And then the songwriting really took off when my brother started dating this girl who is now his beautiful wife. And she had this three quarter nylon string guitar that she had thought she would learn to play and never had. And she’d heard me singing and, and I sang for their engagement party. So she knew that I sang “Everything I do” by Bryan Adams, along with the cassette tape. Yeah, it was high. It was high quality stuff. That’s how I got started. And she gave me her guitar and said, Look, Lynette, I don’t know, maybe you’ll like it. And I was back before Google, and Facebook and all that existed. So I found this, this old book, and it used to just have the fingering like the dots where your fingers go. So some of my chords are a bit mangled. Like, the way I play things, because I just followed the dots or didn’t have where which finger when

Enrico
you’re well, yeah,

Lyn
so my e chords are a bit strange. My mind is a wacky doodle. And people are often like, :what are you playing there?” Wow. But that’s just how I learn. And I told myself in every new cord I learnt, some of the time I got to three chords, I’ve written my first song. And then every time I’d learn a new chord, there’d be four songs, four chords in a song and then five, you know, six. However, you know, I progressed, I progressed with my songs. And I think, you know that that was pretty much how it’s how it started, how I began playing and writing music was through that instrument, I was given that instrument, and it gave me, It gave me a voice to my songs. Up until then, I had been playing a bit of piano, and I was learning violin, which I quite enjoyed, and my teacher loved me, but they weren’t, I mean, piano I could have, I wish I’d kept going, I’ve got one in the background he that I plunk away on pretty terribly, but I, I just found the guitar worked beautifully for what I wanted to write. And, I mean, I love Dolly Parton and I loved the Carpenters when I was very young. And I also really enjoyed jazz music as well. Ella Fitzgerald. That’s kind of why I wanted to play piano, but I just wasn’t good enough for that. So the guitar came along, and she was just a perfect vehicle. And that’s how I got to running.

Enrico
So let me ask you for curiosity, do you still remember, What was your first song about?

Lyn
Do you want to hear it?
I’m sure I’ve got I’m sure I have other songs that existed before this, but this is the first it’s, pretty bad.

Enrico
It’s ok, your first song.

Lyn
So I used to think, because I wanted to write country, that every song I wrote had to have the word country in it, like I said, every five minutes. So this was my dodgy song. And I remember because my mom, let me get it demoed. “Well, they ain’t much to you and assuring much to me. Except a little bit of love and a whole lot of country ….” so you can hear the Carpenters in there and I didn’t know what else to write. So I just held hold for like three bars. Yeah. Oh, but I Oh yeah, the verse, hang on, wait to hear this. How’s it going again? Oh yeah. “Well I better warn you boy……..I aint one of those ordinary chicks, I got knobbly knees and dirty feet and I come from out in the sticks”. And that’s all I remember.

Enrico
That’s awesome.

How old you were?

Lyn
12…12 when I wrote that and, you know, I was writing before that, but that’s the first song I remember, like a completed song, and it makes me giggle. I still think it had a bit of sass about it, you know when I was a kid

Enrico
Considering at 12 putting your expression of how you are living your emotions and the chords together? It’s pretty cool. Pretty good.

So what are your writing about Lyn if I can can ask you? In your albums in your whole career? Did you have something in particular, a themed that you’ve been following or just,

Lyn
I guess some for a long time, it’s been my experience. I mean, you know, write about what you know. And, and often that is love because, I mean, there’s a reason that you know, the number one sellers have the word love in them or are about love because it’s, I think the strongest emotion we feel. So, for a long time I’ve written about that, or my negative experiences with love, and, and the harsh realities of it. And then I’ve also written on about alcoholism, about the difficulties of living someone living with someone who’s who’s going through that addiction. And, and that was in the “Heart of Sorrow” album, I started to really, I guess, be prepared to not always come off as the winner in the song. Because there’s one thing that happens in a lot of 90s country music, right? The the singer, the vocalist, the main character can never be a bad guy, can never have bad experiences, can never do the wrong thing, they’ve always got to come off squeaky clean. And I think I had stuck to that rule for some time. And when I wrote “Beautiful Liar”, which was a letter, I was writing to someone who, who hurt me very deeply. And I realized it was a song It was my first song where it didn’t have a Disney ending, it didn’t have, everything didn’t neatly tie up at the end with a lovely moral to the story just was painful. And that was, you know, very much towards the end of my my writing for the album released in 2012. And I could hear myself moving and shifting as a writer throughout that year of recording that album, because I had to do it in between jobs and in between all this other stuff that was going on. So by the time I did have “Heart of Sorrow” in 2013, I had a lot of songs that were, I guess, darker, like,

Lyn
more introspective and, and challenged me to actually write. I wrote a song about the death of my father; we had a willow tree at the back of our property. And he had hung a tire swing on it, and he would swing me in this tire swing, and I would seeing and he would, he would push and the grass would touch my feet. And it was a beautiful memory. And after he passed it to me, Well, he passed in 2010 and I didn’t actually write that song or finish that song till 2013. So it took me a long time to finish it because every time I go to write, I just choke up and cry. But that song particularly moves me.I look at it from a different perspective now, and actually can appreciate it as a song not just my story. But that’s, you know, that album really challenged me in a lot of ways as a songwriter and, and moving on from that, you know, working with people like Kevin Bennett has, so in Bennett Bowtell Urquhart, a collaboration between myself, Kevin Bennett and Felicity it’s It’s beautiful because we write the songs; there are some covers that we might record here and there or other people’s songs sometimes, but 90% of it is our own. And our rule generally is that we try and write it together. So writing with KB has been a really good growth experience to me. So I think we first got together in 2016 for a one off show, and then we realized how good it was. And it’s kind of our passion project that when we have time in between our solo careers, we get together and do stuff. And it just, it’s good for my soul. And it’s good for me as a learning opportunity as much as anything else. KB (Kevin Bennett) always has a way of, he’s like, “…okay that’s a great idea. How do we come at this from a different angle?…” because everything’s always, you know, there’s nothing in existence that hasn’t been written about, I’m pretty sure. So you’re just trying to express yourself in the most unique way you can. And sometimes, people like KB have this really great radar, check that you’re not doing something that, you know is pretty much been done 1000 times, he’s always good at finding new angles and, and ways to position yourself. Felicity and I are around the same age, she’s only a year older than me. I’ve been looking up to her since I was a young girl. I’ve been looking up to play since I was about 13.

Enrico
Okay.

Lyn
When I first started going to the 10th Country Music Festival, and I saw her in a competition and she just had it all together. And I thought she was just the most incredible thing. She’s nothing fazed her. And she’s still that way. She’s still the person that would potentially be in turmoil internally, but she has this way of staying calm. And she can just put that aside and go, that’s all right. I’ll just put that over there. And calm, you know, she’s pretty incredible human being. And so riding with her is really great. Because she has true country roots like Emmylou Harris. And I hear her sometimes and I’m, I’m taking back to that beautiful 70s country. And her way of writing is, is to, I guess, be pure about what you’re saying? Yeah.

Enrico

You touched a couple of points that I want to come back later. Especially in cowriting, and that ability , especially talking about your song about your dad. But one of the questions that I want to like to ask you, you mentioned before Dolly Parton and the Carpenters, so which have been your main influences, starting as is a songwriter?

12:27

I think, I think as a songwriter would be Dolly at the very beginning, because I just, I was in awe of the way she could, and I still am in the way that she can write something that almost seems flippant, you know, like, just to throw away a fun song, but it’s incredibly well written. And there’s some incredible hooks in there. It’s not just thrown together. But she can write something like two doors down about having a party and “…two doors down and loving and doing it and having a hell of a party..”. And she’s like, you know, just have a bit of fun. And then she’ll write, the first Dolly Parton song I ever learned was called me and little Andy, do you know that song?

Enrico
No, I don’t.

Lyn
Oh, it’s devastating.

Enrico
I’m sorry :-).

Lyn
No, no, this song is devastating. It’s a story about a girl called Sandy that has a puppy dog called Andy. Right. And the story is she’s some well the first lyric is “…late one dark and stormy night. I heard a dog barking. And then I thought I heard somebody at my door knocking…” And it’s this little girl and she’s soaked through holding this puppy dog. And basically her parents are there. Her mom is we can assume in a domestic violence situation her daddy’s always drinking. And they’re not there for her. And she’s she asked if she can come in. Maybe you give me some shelter from the storm basically. So Dolly lets her in and she must be about six or seven this kid and dries her off feeds or puts her to bed and guess what happens? They die! They both die. And it’s like, oh my goodness. So God knew little Andy would be lonesome with her gone so Sandy passes away from pneumonia probably okay. And the little Andy, the puppy dog, goes as well, because God figures you know, the dog would be alone there without her so we’ll send them both. But the haunting part of it is she does this. She has this voice of a little girl. “He got no gingerbread, he got no candy. He got an extra bed for me in the little Andy”.
So it was first time I learned on that little nylon string. And I did the voice. I did everything. And I sat there and practice the pattern to play it. I think it taught me so much about songwriting. I think that’s where I learnt a lot about writing was listening and learning. And it kind of, you don’t understand it, but it teaches you the structure of a great song. And inadvertently, you know, I’m not saying my, you know, whole lot of country was anything of the standard of Dolly Parton. But I definitely understood structure, and no one had tought me, I understood what a verse was what a chorus was, what a rhyming structure did. No one ever sat them down and said, okay, Lynette. So that’s A B, A B, running structure. I mean, I did poetry once I got to like grade eight, nine, but I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew what sounded good. So I think, yeah, my biggest influence early on, was Dolly. And as, as I’ve progressed, as a writer, I really enjoy listening to people like Foy Vance. I’ve actually done a cover of one of his songs. He just inspires me the way he can turn a phrase, and he has this conversational way of songwriting, but it still has poetry. So it kind of it just moves me and vocally and, and musically,

Enrico

and it is basically my next question that was exactly. From this player as an author, what do you get the most? and you just say it, just told us about Dolly. And Foy Vance, okay. You said a beginning that you started when you were very young. And you started mumbling some melodies. So, all come to you today, Lyn Bowtell today, what still come easyier for you. The lyrics, or the songs? I mean, the words or the music, you start mumbling something in your mind, and then you put the words on top of that the lyrics are the other way?

Lyn

Well, one thing I’ve learned how to do is, my lyrics get better as I get older, because you read more, you become more analytical. I’m not saying songwriting should be all analytical by any means. But it’s it’s that, you know, when you think about Leonard Cohen, those kind of songwriters, they’re writing poetry, it’s not just think about Dylan, Bob Dylan, you know, the way they write it’s, it’s incredible “tangled up in blue”, you know, bloody hell. And, and so I think for me, that is my secondary gift, my gift number one has always been melody, and groove. So I’ll be when I go to write something, it often starts with, a try not to always pick up the guitar, because then you go, you kind of navigate to the same chords. And the same, the same things you always play I try and I just make it vocal. And often I’ll have maybe an idea, maybe I’ll see something, something annoys me, or I feel emotional about something. And there’s songs I’ve written recently that will be on the next album, that I’ve finished off with KB.
And I knew I wanted it to be, I wanted to say something, but I didn’t want it to be politically to, you know, I didn’t want to corner people. I didn’t want people to think, Oh, you know, Lynnie starting to completely

Enrico
put a label on you for some reason.

Lyn
Yeah. But for me during the COVID pandemic, when the world has gone insane. One thing that hurt my heart was during the Black Lives Matter campaign, some of our Ozzie counterparts, some of my, you know, you saw not everyone I know was like this, but there are people on Facebook who were like, why do we have to do this? What’s this all about? It doesn’t affect us! It’s the US! And it was it was disturbing, to say the very least, I found it very disturbing that people couldn’t see the problems in our own backyard, or they had blinkers on and made all these assumptions. And people were writing things on Facebook, and I’m always careful about what I do and say. So there’s some things like when gay marriage became an issue in Australia, as in, we were all trying to make that happen. I was public about that. I was like, You know what, come at me bring it on. You know, I’m a gay marriage supporter. If you don’t like it, lump it. But I think other than that, I’ve always been careful because even your neighbors sometimes you can be shocked that you have very opposing views yet you get along you can have a barbeque together. But if you talk about politics and religion… so I was like, Okay, I’ll be careful about this. But when the Black Lives Matter, happened here in Australia, and people were on board and other people didn’t understand it, so they chose to belittle it, it bothered me. And so I had this song idea. And he was like, I was just doing this….”..You might think you know, me, I just want to be free to be who I am….” And then I didn’t have anything else. So I was like…(Lyn noodling a melody)

you start making sounds right? And I record it. And then every now and again, I think that sounded like a word that sounded like this, that sound like that. And then I took the idea to KB be on zoom. And I said, You know, I want this to be about that. But I don’t want it to be like, patronizing, or in any way, kind of, you know, left wing yelling at everybody. I just, I just wanted to say for once, and I’m sick of people thinking they know me, I’m sick of people thinking, and no offense, I love what I do. But online, sometimes, you know, you’ve always got a smile. And if you put a photo up, that’s a little intense, people often say, “Oh, lovely wish we could see that lovely smile.” And they always assume that you’re kind of two dimensional. And that none of this stuff should affect you, and you shouldn’t have a voice. And so KB took that idea. And he said, What if it was? And I said, I’m really tired of people thinking they can get away with anything online. He said, so you’re more inclined to want to talk to people, Woman to Woman, woman to man, I said, exactly. So that became the title of the song, woman womb, woman to man. And I’m, and I had this melody, and I didn’t know if it was going to be a lyric or just a hook. And it ended up just being a hook, like “Oh, oh, oh, woman, woman, woman to man”. So sometimes I write something I’m not really sure what’s going to be. Um, but I know that melody is important. So I guess what I would say, to anyone writing songs out there who wants to be less contrived is don’t be afraid to make up weird sounds like just blew it and record it. Because you’ll often come up with something in a spare that moment, when you’re driving a vehicle, because you’re no longer thinking about anything, you just driving. So you kind of free and open. So it can be good to say, hey, Siri, record this voice memo, you know, and sing something. And other times it can be when you’re in the shower, you know, for me driving is a very common place for me to come up with ideas. So because I can’t do anything else, yeah.

Enrico

And I know if he’s relevant with the podcast, but I heard recently, and I believe is relevant what you just say, I was listening to another podcast, and they were interviewing a Buddhist monk from South Korea. And he was talking about being present in when you are present in in life is when you have the ideas and could be your song could be the lyrics then you’re searching for. And he was using the metaphor of driving and see when you are seated, and you’re driving, you’re going toward. So you focus on the roads where you’re focused on yourself driving the car. So you just see the road in front of you. When you detach yourself from driving, means that you’re still safe and driving, but you’re not going anywhere is the world coming to you you still move in the car, but you let this go you quiet your mind and you let life can throw you is when you have all this fabulous idea. Like when you’re in the shower, because you’re totally relaxed. You’re not thinking about anything, but you’re just enjoying the moment of being present. And is where all this idea all these feelings are coming coming together.

Lyn

Yes.It is really cool. And that’s why a lot of songwriters, like a lot of my mates do this. They take themselves away from home, to write, because there’s always something to do at home. There’s always a distraction. There’s always emails, there’s always carpet to be vacuumed. And I think that we get, I get into a routine and a bit of a lot about what I do at home. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it can be hard to carve out an artistic environment. So that’s where I found cowrite on zoom really helpful because I have to show up, creatively. And also traveling to other places to write. So this weekend, I’ll be heading to write with KB again, because I’m out of my house, and, and the dogs can come and Damon comes, my partner. And he gets involved in writing, we write a lot. And what I do with him and take me about a year to get used to, it because I was very, I was very close to my chest about songwriting with Damon. And because we’re partners in life, and in work, it can be a tumultuous thing, like, kind of some people… I’ve had people say, “jeez, you’re brave!”, you’re brave to write with your partner. And I tell you what it wasn’t, it was messy at first. When was the first time it happened, I was writing the song. And he was sitting out on the bed, I can remember that it really happened. And he was sitting on the porch, and he could hear what I was writing. And he he had written other lyrics, and he came and brought them into me. And I was offended. I was like, what I’ve written is perfect.

Enrico

okay,

Lyn

you know, sacred, I can’t believe this is my internal dialogue, right? And I was kind of, “I didn’t ask you to help”. And internally, this is what I was thinking, I” didn’t ask for help”. I didn’t, “I didn’t give you permission to come in”. Dammit. It’s better than what I wrote! I was like, Ah, so I had to have two really difficult moment of me letting go and finally came to the conclusion, it was better the lyrics he had written had improved things. And I needed to, I guess, let it be. And, and it has taken we’ve been together eight years, and it’s taken till probably the last two years, for me to really open my heart up to that. And I’m not really sure if it’s just that he’s my partner. I think that is what it is. Because I write with other people. And I have no issue with that, like, hearing their ideas and taking mine and changing it and moving it around. But there’s something I’m very precious with him. But it’s it’s been a really good working relationship. Because we wrote heart of sorrow together. We’ve written numerous songs together old habits, he, he really helped me bring that together. “Old Habits” that was the song I wrote about alcoholism. And he just has this way of kind of tying the loose ends and suggesting a lyric change that will bring a deeper meaning with one word. He’s kind of like, I seem in a way like Leonard Cohen, like, you know, he comes in and goes, kind of like Yoda, you know, like, I think, and he does, he’s not always great. Like, he makes you know, dodgy suggestions too. But generally speaking, and improves my songs, no end and I could have written 80% of the song. And that last 20% it’s like the icing on the cake. So you know that that’s made a big difference opening my heart to that.

Enrico

Yeah. So before we go to the the CO writing then something that I wanted to ask you is, I go back to the melody and the lyrics that sometimes comes, when exactly or how happened in you that you know, “…or this can be a good something good…” No, you have a lot of lyrics a lot of sounds in your mind, maybe you record them. How do you know that something that is coming, That is emerging Is the right thing is the right? I should write about this? To

Lyn

be honest, sometimes I don’t know. My perspectives are skewed. So I’ve learnt to record everything, even if in the moment I think Ah, no, I’ll do it. I’ll record it. And then what I do is I come back with that analytical mind. And listen and go “oh, that has promise. Okay”, so I’ll name that voice memo. Good idea, or you know, interesting, blah blah blah. Yeah. And that can be one way I go about it is sifting through the cosl to try and find the diamonds the rough diamonds that are then taken work with, other times it just happens it just it’s never the same, never quite same but sometimes I’ll have this idea and I need to sit down and write it but life is so busy between what usually is touring and teaching music from home that I don’t always have the time to be in that creative space so I’ve had to learn to record things put them down and then come back to them later and being creative mindset again. But um, I think you know, you know when you’re writing a great song,

Enrico

yeah, that could be a good, I feel a good feedback for anyone any starting songwriter to record anything. I do that in my job, I record everything, any idea anything that is emerging and just put it down somewhere. Because as you say, you never know. Never know, maybe, yeah, maybe you record something today and record something in 10 days, and you connect the dots off these can connect with this and put it together come up with something that is that is brilliant.

Lyn

I think that’s very true. The subconscious is very powerful. And you’ll be writing something, you’d have no idea what it’s about. Right? You don’t know what the heck you’re talking about. And then yeah, week later, or a month or six months later, you hear it and you go, “that’s about this… I read this about this”. And that happened with a Bowtell Bennet Urquhart song called “Mountain of pain”. I had this idea when Trump first got in as president and I was writing this song, kind of like a, almost like a gospely thing. And, and I didn’t know what it was about, but I was writing, you know, you can’t, you can’t be building walls and expecting to bring people together. And, and I didn’t know what it was about. And then I sat down with the guy said, I’ve got this idea. I’ve got no idea what it’s about. And then KB he looks at me and he goes, “it sounds like it’s about Trump”. And the light bulb went over my head. And I was like, it is about that. So and at the time, I just didn’t realize. So that’s something I’ve learned to trust is that, record it all. And even if it’s a beat, even if it’s like you hear a beat, or you you hear like, I’ve often got recordings on there of me going like…(Lyn singing a rythm..) like me trying to be a band, you know, because I hear this thing. And I can’t recreate it. I’m in the car and I don’t play drums and I can’t play guitar like I hear it. So I’m kind of mucking around and making sounds. It’s the perfect way to do things. I think the best thing you can do is let go of your adult embarrassment. Yeah,

32:01

yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Be back to be a kid with wonder, there is no fee, no anything. They just, they just express whatever comes through, they just express it.

Lyn
That’s right.

Enrico
no shaming in, in anything kids. They just, like transparent.

Lyn

Absolutely.

Enrico

Yeah. Cool. When songwriting became a burden for you? If that ever happen?

Lyn

I has. It’s been a burden when I’m writing for album projects, and I’m not like, for example, years ago, writing for Bella, I was the chief songwriter, the girls, Karen and Karen O’Shea, your beautiful partner, and Kate Ballantine, our our friend, they wrote, but they would they would say things like, “oh, we’re not as prolific as Lynnie”, or, you know, so. And I was one with the publishing deal with BMG. So there was this pressure to write and, and I couldn’t just write what came, I had to write for the group, which is a very different mode of thinking. And I think sometimes that could be a burden, because I was trying to please our a & r guy at the record label, I was trying to please our producer, not to mention the girls like I wanted them to love it, too, you know, and they’re always incredibly supportive. I reckon. It didn’t matter what I write them, like, “Oh, my God, that’s amazing”. You know, they were beautiful. But it was it was a burden sometimes because I felt a great deal of responsibility. And, and, and yeah, like when you’re writing for an album, in the past, I’ve done it so many different ways, right? songwriting for records like, and, and sometimes you’ll have just 10 songs, have nothing else, you know, and you got to record them. That’s it. That’s an incredible situation, where you want to have 20 songs 30 songs available to you. But you just don’t and you haven’t had the space and time to write more.

Enrico

So that is stopping, is it stopping your creativity? When you feel in that position, let’s say stressful, because you’re just standing, you would like to have more, you are not able to. But you have this 10 and so you are in a very compressed situation. Are you still true to yourself when you ride in this state? Are you still able to write your songs?

Lyn

I think sometimes when you’re writing for a project, and there’s a deadline, you can go one of two ways can be a matter of brilliance, right? because of the pressure you can write something amazing. I’ve had both things happen.

I’ve written incredible songs, and then absolute pieces of turd. And so what I’ve come to the conclusion with this next project that I’m working on for example, because it’s been a while since I’ve released anything as Lyn Bowtel, I’ve released some stuff is Bennet Bowtell Urquhart and I’ve been involved in collaborations with Luke O’Shea. And that’s been lovely. But I haven’t been ready to do my own project. And now I feel that I am. I’m also being careful not to pressure myself. So I’m going to the studio in March and just recording three songs with Shane Nicholson as my producer. And then the next time I go in, I’ll do another three, and then another three, and we’ll release singles. And that way, I don’t have this massive task, finding 10 or 12 incredible songs, because I never want there to be album fodder. I mean, ultimately, they’re probably always is, right?. But there’s always this pressure. And there’s always a sense that they’ve all got to tie together and, and make sense together as a group of songs. And now that the world has become a playlist market, as a singles market. At first, I fought against that internally. I was like, “No, no, I can’t do that. I’m still gonna go and do an album, blah”. And even last year, I had a, I had a deadline and everything that I was going to do these, I’m gonna have 10 songs, and I only had six good songs. And I was like “ahhhhh”, and really terribly our beautiful friend, Glen Hanna, we lost him to suicide, and that’s Felicity Hurquhart husband. So he was, he produced and played on all the Bennet Bowtell Urquhart Records, played with us every gig. I’ve known him, probably longer than I’ve known you. And so it was a massive, like, kick in the guts. And, and also, it helped me to step back. And I thought, okay, it’s not important. It’s actually nobody is, people want to hear my music. Nobody is going to be in pain or suffer if I don’t record yet.

Enrico
Yeah.

Lyn
And definitely me. So it made me put a hold on everything. And then I got back into that strange headspace and booked again, I was like, “I’m gonna have it all ready for October, bla bla bla “ … we lost him in June and Damon was s like, “Why are you putting this pressure on yourself?” And I was like, “I don’t really know”. And so once I let go of that, it’s been a lovely journey to be writing these songs, and changing my mindset, that I don’t have to go into the studio, and have 10 amazing songs ready. Yeah, I know, I’ve got three amazing songs. So you know, I know I’ve got great songs as well. But you know, like, it’s just that sense of, I’m 100% backing this song, you know. So I’m going to do it three at a time. And maybe over the space of a year have recorded the entire record. And then maybe in 2022, to release the album, but leading up to that just be doing singles, and it’s a lovely way to feel about it. It’s far less pressure, and far more enjoyable.

Enrico

So you always put fun in the process. Or not?

Lyn

I’m so excited. I booked it literally

Enrico

when you when you go to the studio to record 1,2,3, or many songs, you still do it with fun all the time, because I believe that is the fuel that can really take you anywhere.

Lyn

Well, working with Shane Nicholson, I find incredibly fun. He’s a funny man, he has a very wicked sense of humor, and my kind of dry sense of humor. And it generally starts in the studio, us, you know, I’ll send him the demos, just me playing guitar, just rough demos. I don’t like to do too much before we go into the studio, like work them up too much because he has this incredible perspective. So I don’t want to be stuck in a rut that the song has to have this drum feel and it should be this guitar part and all that sort of thing. I just tried to keep them fairly bare bones so that I’m not shocked by what he does. He can take something and really shift it. shift the focus and you go, “oh, wow, that’s really cool”. And I find that so exciting.

Enrico

So when, as a burden, we say sometimes songwriting became a burden for many reasons, but when became for you a need, something that is going on, inside yourself or trigger from outside things that can happen, we are living in a complicated world at the moment. When songwriting became a need, like some that will take notes in a personal diary, for you is to express that in a song; when that became a need.

Lyn

Oh, all the time. It’s always a need. And and what I do, like throughout, so, you know, after losing Glen, throughout the pandemic, there’s a bunch of songs I’ve written that aren’t, they’re not for human consumption. They’re just for me.

Enrico

Yeah. Cool.

Lyn
And they’re not meant to be commercial or groundbreaking, or for necessarily anyone else’s ease. Yeah. And, and I think that, that is part of that need to, to be able to, often just cry and sing and write, or, you know, write something angry, and maybe it won’t see the light of day. And that’s okay. I think it’s always a need for me, I think it’s healing and,

Enrico

yeah, help you to channel your your pain and just let it go.

Lyn

Yes.

41:18

It’s done. You know, yeah. That is

41:20

something that I really admire or have some writers. Because in what I do is it’s my my day life, you know, that I’m a life coach. And I find very, a lot of people they find very difficult to say, I love you, as a really felt I love you from the heart, not because they don’t feel it, but because they don’t want to show their vulnerability. So, songwriter putting in songs, some feelings that are, it’s incredible for me. It’s extremely courageous seeing what they put in their songs, because I don’t know if I will be able to, you know, you feel not ashamed, but put your vulnerability up to the world to be listened. You basically have under the lights, totally under, cannot hide anywhere. It’s incredible. So are you leave that? Are you able to do that? Because something that I’ve always been curious to ask you do that?

Lyn

I don’t know. I think there’s a safety blanket. Yeah, I think it’s like me on stage, I feel safe on stage performing in front of a roomful of strangers, singing about my deepest, darkest emotions, my happiest, and my worst times, I feel really safe doing that onstage. It’s, it doesn’t make sense, right? It doesn’t 100%

Lyn

make sense tome in a way that I can imagine is, you know, scars or scars as much as we go through our pain and we heal the pain the pain, scars will be there forever. So anytime that I can imagine singing a song, the trigger feelings and take you back in time to maybe singing and you said in front of people is another way to just let it go is no singing it? In the moment you feel the feeling but you’re, you’re able to express that and let let the feeling go. And when is gone Okay, you still may be sad, maybe it’ll be down but it’s gone. It’s like and somehow is like, some of the memories, the sad memories that we have is when we lose someone you lose your dad, I lose my dad last year. That is like a memory that come back to you and see is maybe sad. But he’s also in some are honoring that person or in that particular life experience that you had.

Lyn

Yeah. And, you know, the loss of a parent is is when you’ve had a close relationship and my father and I loving music so much it does, it leaves this this massive…. had someone explain it like, there’s a sinkhole in your house and, and it’s in your hallway that you walk down every day. And that’s grief. And it’s like this massive sinkhole. And for a long time at the beginning of it, you forget it’s there, and you fall into it. Every time you go to walk down the hallway to make a cup of coffee to do the laundry, whatever. Yeah, and then eventually, the sinkhole doesn’t go away, it gets a bit smaller, and you start to remember it’s there and you go around it. You know, you just get all that’s right, and you walk around it. So it’s not that grief goes away. It’s just that we learn how to assimilate it into our lives. And I think that can be said for songwriting too. When I first write something from a very strong emotion. It is something I cannot ignore. It’s just everywhere. It’s all over everything I’m doing and I’m you know, almost obsessed with it. Yeah. And then I ride it. And I feel like you know, the universe knows that’s my feeling on that now. And the hardest part, sometimes there’s a really strong subject matter. To perform it, It’s very different. The songwriter and me and performer in me are linked, but they’re not the same person.

Enrico
So yeah.

Lyn
So like, I was saying this stuff I’ve written this year that I’m not going to perform. Yeah, I didn’t write for anyone, just for me. Yeah. But then there’s other things, I know, I need to put that on stage, I need to express that. And as you were saying, before, you know, sometimes people, they don’t know how to say, I love you, they feel it, but and how to express it. Yeah. And that’s where I don’t think I’m Buddha or anything, or the Dalai Lama spreading this message of hope and peace and love that people can come and experience that, but I do hope that I helped them to let go and feel. And I think that is very powerful. When you sing something, and people are crying. And you know, you’ve touched a nerve, you know, you’ve opened a feeling that I had locked away. And the other the other opposite end of that is when the joy is and you know, loving that as well. And it’s such a beautiful experience, to know that you wrote something, you created something, and now you share it with someone else, and it becomes their creation, they don’t know why you wrote that exactly, not every song is literal. And so their perspective on it is very different. They love it because of their experiences. So once you’ve written the song, you can be in control of what people think of it, you have to let it go.

Enrico

It’s really interesting, don’t just listen to what you’re saying is like a cathartic moment of transformation from pain to a sentence to liberation to just let go this this feelings and me, you, maybe people seeing you on stage going through a song that is a deep song with some deep meaning with some pain is like, is like authorizing them you can, I can do that here so you can now because the problem I feel in people is really expressing themselves, and seeing someone that is doing.. so if you on the stage can live that pain, is connecting with my pain. So you know, I feel okay in this moment to let it come out and living it. So that’s why maybe the connection with the tears come from from emotions, because it’s something I always tried to understand how is it possible. Sometimes I’m listening to songs and I and I get really emotional, but and I asked myself, I never experienced that. I never experienced anything, like what the song is talking about, but somehow takes me to a place of, of deep emotions. So obviously unconsciously, there’s some kind of allowance “okay, now now you listen this so now its okay for you to cry or like, let it go.

Lyn

Yeah. And, and personal experience like writing your own unique story is incredibly universal. As you were saying you hadn’t experienced that, but it makes you cry. Right? So I think that there’s we’re often told as songwriters, right? Sometimes be commercial, it needs to be universal. What does that even mean? Like? So? Does that mean, If that was the case, any song that’s ever been written about a person’s name? That may not be universal? Because everyone’s not called Amanda? Yeah, everyone’s not Billy Jane. Yeah. However, the more personal it is, the more universal it is. Because as human beings, we have empathy. And and we can hear that person’s story. It’s like, when you watch the news, and they’re talking about something that’s happened to somebody and, you know, you haven’t experienced that, but yeah, empathy. And you can relate because in your life, you’ve had struggles. And, and as a songwriter, that’s one thing I’ve learned over the years is that personal experience and singing from that unique perspective, in my own my own experiences is not a bad thing. I don’t have to try and make everyone feel at ease. I don’t have to try and include everyone, because they will be included if I’m singing my own. My own truth,

Enrico

You know listening, this is just an idea. A feeling that I have is, and these are my beliefs but listening to what you’re saying is like I have an image of this emotional, universal field that is just around us because if I never see it’s yours experience, but I feel triggered in feeling emotional, how that happen. Maybe through your song, the vibration of the music, the lyrics and the sounds takes me to a space where I finally can connect with this, with this universal emotional field, and is where I pick, where I connect with things.

Lyn

Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing. It’s not just words. And also it’s the sound of the word

Enrico

The sound,Yeah, absolutely

Lyn

Um, often there’ll be words I choose not for anything else other than the sound. Like, they have meaning, obviously, but the sound of them is what makes them work against the melody I’ve chosen. Yeah. So and that is powerful. And I don’t know how that happens. I don’t have any. No one trained me to do that. I just know. Yeah. And I guess I was trained by listening to incredible singers, listening to great music. That was a training in a way. But I think when you consider that lots of people listen to those singers, lots of people listen to Bob Dylan, lots of people listen to, you know, Dolly Parton. Why does it hone? Well, how do I hone in, I think it’s just a skill I’ve always had, I’ve always felt, I can never go to sleep to the radio, because I’m too busy analyzing and listening to the arrangement to this, to the sounds, to the key, to everything. So I I’ve always been deep in music. And and it’s just,

Enrico

you know, what I just said, that, it’s like the analogy that we were doing before of driving, is when you shut down your mind, your judgmental mind is just listening, you just let the music comes through you, you get to that place where you have your can, you’re really connecting with your heart and connect with your heart you connect with, with others. So it’s really cool. I don’t know, I’m not an expert. So I’m just guessing based on my own experience in my life,

Lyn

doesn’t dry up. Like I’ve had periods of time where I’ve had, I’ve been very analytical. And I’ve been very businesslike in my career. So that creative self hasn’t come through, and I’ve had writer’s block. And what I did is I went back to some basic staff. So when you think about, there’s a book called The artists way, it’s been out for years, years years and years. I went back and read that again, and just did what she suggested. And that is every morning, you get up and you write your pages, you write three pages of, of whatever comes out, so you don’t analyze it. You also don’t read it. You just and it’s not writing a song. It’s actually like, having my coffee, the birds are singing, blah, blah. next minute you write something really deep. I dreamt about this last night. I’m really annoyed, because I can’t wait until… any just any rubbish. You just write it down. And it almost defrags your internal computer.

Enrico

Yeah.

Lyn

And then, and then you can start the day. Having got her out, got out all of that. Right. And the other thing she talks about is not shaming yourself and belittling, do not belittle your creative self. Yeah, we all have this inner critic, which is incredibly important, right?

Enrico
Oh Yes, absolutely

Lyn
Otherwise, we go out there in the world with muffin top, you know, because we were wearing jeans that were too tight, we wouldn’t question it. Or we’d be writing songs that were rubbish and thinking that was great. So you do need your inner critic, your analytical side. But when you’re in the beginnings of songwriting, you can’t let that critic takeover.

Enrico

Don’t put you on the throne. Because …

Lyn

yeah. So I think when you’re out of whack when you’re out of balance, the inner critic is too strong. And you need to, you know, you need to kind of balance that out. And but one thing I’ve learned is, ideas will always come and you just allow the flow to happen. Like you’re saying, it’s, it’s like a field of emotion out there. Yeah. Gina Jeffries told me when I was 16 or something. Yeah. Because I wrote a song once with this person. And I was really unhappy with the way it went. And I was bummed out, I said, all that idea was so good and really personal. She said, Lynnie you have ideas coming up the wazoo, you’ll be fine. I’m like, “I won’t be that song was so important. Blah, blah, blah, now it’s ruined”. And she was like, “No, you just need to open up”. I’m probably not going to say this as beautifully as she will, I’m sure. But you open up your mind to that universal gift of inspiration. And you just let it in.

Enrico
We go back to the beginning you go back to your kids mind, kids being and really, life come through you and just experience and just experience and put out there what is coming from your heart?

Lyn
I think that’s why songwriters. Uh, generally not always but musicians and songwriters, we have this light. We have very deep, dark emotions. And that’s why there’s often addiction involved in the music industry because we go from applause to kind of, you know, this depressive state. But generally speaking songwriters have an almost immaturity about them. They’re able to laugh at silly jokes. They’re able to, not everyone, but generally speaking, musicians can be quite childlike. Yeah. And it keeps you young.

Enrico

Absolutely, if I believe that is a good recipe for for living a good life anyway. Yeah.

Lyn

Yeah.

Enrico

One of the last questions, you’ve been absolutely fantastic. Unbelievable. This interview is gold.

Lyn

loving it.

Enrico

I’m loving it. Absolutely. Is it? I don’t know if it’s a cheeky question, maybe. But which artists you think deserve more recognizement? You know, that’s a lot of songwriters, artists out there that, and some of them, they don’t have yet maybe the visibility or the, I don’t want to say importance, because importance is very relative word, but they deserve, they would deserve more recognizement?

Lyn

I think there’s a lot of us out there that. I guess the question is, what do you define as success?

Enrico

That’s exactly correct.

Lyn

You know, so is it important to to be famous? Or is it important to be creative and proud of your work?

Enrico
and be true to yourself

Lyn
Many, many years ago, I made a choice. I remember being in the studio. And I was recording with an incredible engineer. And he said, “Oh, you know, if we, if we pitch this up, three semitones. So you sound younger”, and at the time I was in my 20s. So it wasn’t like I was an old bird And, he said, “if we pick this up, you know, a ton and half, it’ll be a hit”. I’m like, Why? He has “Oh, they’re all doing it. Seal it does it. All the pop artists do it. It just helps it become more commercial”. And in that moment, I made a decision. And I said, You know what? No, because for one, I’m not a soprano bottom. So I can’t sing that high in real life. So I can’t sing it in E flat. Yeah, I sing it naturally in C, why would I pretend I can number one

Enrico
and go on stage and try to do that, again.

Lyn

Feels really lame to me, you know, I’m not going to be proud of that. And ultimately, that’s what it came down to. What legacy do I want to leave behind? Do I want to be a Kardashian? Or do I just, do I just want to know that what I leave behind is what I’m proud of. And so when you say artists, you need more recognition. There’s heaps of artists in Australia, that are…,men, they are just as good if not better, than international artists. They deserve heaps of recognition. But ultimately, would that make them happy? I don’t know. Because I look at a lot of famous people, poor Taylor Swift, who I think is incredibly talented human being but a tortured soul. Like watching that documentary on Netflix about Taylor. Yeah, was very revealing that I think she’s quite tortured. I’m sure she’s not just a tortured soul. But I’m certain there is an element of pain and misgivings to be famous. So do I wish that upon anybody? No. And, and I think that, I just think that ultimately, if you can live a good life, and create music you’re proud of, that’s all I wish for you and whatever your version of successes. Yeah, you have that? You know, I think that that’s, that’s more important than, than fame and being recognized.

Enrico

Yes. It’s like writing and keep writing in songwriting, being true to yourself, because when you stop doing that, you just another copy of someone else.

Lyn

Exactly. I mean, there’s, so there’s some really great young talent coming through Australian alternative country. For example, I think about Clint Wilson, who’s this guy in from Melbourne. His kind Paul Kelly- ish. Not, is not a rip off by any means, like the way he writes. And I’d like to see him succeed at whatever he wants to do. For example, there’s really great singer songwriter who is up for new talent in the garden, the TAS next year, Cass Hopetoun. She’s impressive. There’s a group called The New Graces, three beautiful women. I can relate to that, making music and they play very folky, yeah, heartfelt, almost bluegrass, music, and play acoustic instruments and sing gorgeous harmonies. I’d like to see them be more recognized. You know. I’d like to see Kevin Bennett. Yeah, he’s a bloody national treasure. But I’m pretty sure he made the same decision that I did many years ago. Yeah. Which which way am I going to go? And I’m really glad I made that choice. Because I don’t think I’d feel comfortable otherwise, in what I was doing. I wouldn’t feel proud.

Enrico

Pretty awesome. Last very question for you. Yes. Which is the song you wish to have written? There’s someone else? There you here, and I know there could be gazillions of songs by some one song that he you know, when you listen, you keep listening. Time after time you say, I wouldn’t like to be the person who wrote that.

Lyn

There’s a lot of songs I wish I had written. I guess I wish I’d written Jolene, because geez, that songs played so much live. And sometimes it’s tortured to death. I must say sometimes it’s torture is hearing people’s versions of it. But what an incredible song. Go back and listen to her original version. In the studio. She knew the riff, the guys couldn’t play it. You know, because back in the day where girls didn’t play, the guitar on the recordings is a Dolly Parton song If you’re not sure,

Enrico

yeah.

Lyn
But I kind of wish I’d written that. Because for me, that song is incredibly well written and sneaks up on you. You don’t think there’s much to it? There’s a lot to that song. And her approach and the way she sings it wouldn’t mind have having written that tune. But I think a song that really captures me that I do wish I had written probably John Prine song …”…I am an old woman. And after my mother…”, the fact that he wrote a tune from the perspective of a woman. And also just yeah, it’s just divine. And when he you know, when you hear the covers that have been done of that song, and how how, how much respect is given to that song. It’s really important. Sorry, the titles just escaped me

Enrico

Angel from Montgomery

Lyn

Thank you. Gosh, that’s terrible. But again, that’s a literal, but non literal song. Like, the verses are incredibly literal. She’s talking about, you know, flies in the kitchen, I can hear him buzzing whatever, I

don’t care. I’m so depressed. And then the chorus is kind of this you know, strange rhyme about poetry and make me an angel from Montgomery like the flies from Montgomery. She talking about Hank Williams I think, and I make me a poster of an old rodeo. What does she mean by that? She, and do we have to know what it means? No, it just invokes a feeling. Yeah, a person who wants to escape. Yeah, sense of being able to escape Yeah. And john Prine. God rest. His soul was an incredible songwriter who wrote simple songs that were not simple. The same way that I think Jolene is a simple song that is not simple. It is. It is beautifully written and the craft is there. And that eternal ache, that that feeling that you get when you hear it that there are two songs that I love to hear. I love to play over and over again.

Enrico
Fantastic. Thank you, Lyn for this interview. I know and I respect your time. I know you’re getting ready. Also, we have to say you are the director of the country music college that is probably taking you busy in there. I don’t know if you have another album. I haven’t seen any album around in the house. I don’t think you have another new album yet

Lyn

no I’m working on it, as I said, gonna do it in those little chunks. But yeah, the Academy of Country Music is something I’m incredibly proud to be the director of and I met your beautiful partner, Karen O’Shea in ‘97. At the inaugural the very first one it was the college and before it came Academy about 10 years later I think, but we’re doing an online version of the Academy in January. So yeah, there’s a little stress and pressure with that, but it’s a two day webinar, and it’s gonna be amazing. And I’m really proud to be a part of it. It’s just, um, it’s something that that fills my, my soul every year. So to be able to do something online, at least, you know, we can all get together because of COVID. But it’s lovely to be able to keep it going. And then hopefully, by July, we’ll be able to do the Jr. course again, fingers crossed, that would be lovely. Yeah.

Enrico

So what if people want to get in touch with you, you have a website, you have your social media.

Lyn

All of that stuff, they can go to lynbowtell.com and have a look at what I’m, what my wares are what I’m selling, or contact me on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,

Enrico

So it has been absolutely fabulous. We met a lot of times over the years, but it’s always very exciting listening some of the stories that then you share with us today, I’ve never heard them before. So it’s been knowing Lyn a little bit more,

Lyn

has been lovely to chat to you. And just so your listeners know, we first met you and I, when Bella went to Italy on a on a tour, and we went over there with Michael Felix and Locklan Brian and the Wilds. Yeah. And it was an incredible experience and and you ended up following us back eventually which was nice.

Enrico

Yeah, love you know sometimes you know, Love is a powerful source. And now that you share this I remember they arrived to the airport in I was with Alan Samin, there was the matron, European distributor at that time. And he told me so I say okay, it’s summertime in Venice and 1000s of people and 1000s of girls coming from all over the world. And he said to me, “just go in and find three girls”. And I said, “Alan, there are girls everywhere. What kind of girls, who are they?”
And I remember that he told me one of them as purple hair. Oh, that was me! that was you! So I was going around inside the airport trying to find it some of the purple air and I got few more few more than than one and I will say are you Lyn? No! I was really I said okay, I don’t know,

Lyn
You know you could have hold a sign?

Enrico

Yeah, maybe but you were outside I was inside I remember that I was coming out. And I saw you on the left right seat on the corner. So maybe there should be. That should be them, it’s how we met the first time.

Lyn

That was a long time ago. But I’m really pleased that you found the girl with the purple hair and the other two chicks

Enrico

One with the blonde hair, and now I’m in Australian and I love it and being in this world and thank you as well to you because I mean introducing in the music world of songwriters and singers through basically the Bella

Lyn

No, it’s been my absolute pleasure.

Enrico

Thank you Lyn and guys thank you for listening. It’s been a pretty long interview, but I believe absolutely gold and Absolutely You will enjoy it and to the next one. Thanks again, Lynnie.

Lyn
Thank you Enrico