Photo Credit: Felix Bartlett
Sadness & Complete Disappointment have released the video for their new track HIGH, the final part of their trilogy of tracks from their GBH EP.
“High was a painful song to write. I knew it was a topic I wanted to sing about, but it was a hard place to go to in my brain. For a long time I had wanted to write a song about the dangerous situations you can find yourself in, and the advantage that is so often taken of you, when you have substance abuse issues, especially as (but not exclusively being) a woman,” explains vocalist and drummer Esmee Baker.
“I’ve struggled a lot with addiction and spent years hiding it from people in what I referred to as my “real life” – I hid it from my colleagues, my friends, my family, and would go and get massively fucked up with virtual strangers so as not to let that side of my life impact anyone who cared about me. This meant that when I was in a dangerous situation, I had no one around me that could step in, the only people about were other fuck ups. I didn’t know these people, I didn’t know their intentions, and predictably, they didn’t ever have a shred of compassion or a second thought of what I might want or need. It was all very – ‘if she didn’t want this, she shouldn’t have gotten so fucked up.’”
Baker continues, “This song is a snapshot of a moment in my life. I was in a failing relationship so my home life was bleak, and the escape I had was drugs. I’d go out and find myself the next day with flashes of men looming over me, grotesque encounters and inexplicable injuries. And then, to delve deeper into the misery of the circumstance – if I had the nerve to complain about the situations I found myself in, people would often dismiss them as the results of my own choices. That my crying or my whining won’t help a thing – it won’t fix the problem. As if quitting morphine, coke or alcohol was as easy as falling off a log for the chronically depressed. It’s a miserable song with no real conclusion – a long tunnel with no light at the end of it. Unfortunately I think it’s a story a lot of people can relate to and I hope that it can provide some kind of catharsis for anyone who’s been in the same dark and lonely place.”
GBH is due for release on 3rd November 2023.
