Lucy Spraggan On ‘Dear You’, The Importance Of Mental Health

Singer's hard-hitting new video is going viral...

Mental health is important.

It's a simple fact, one that there is simply no getting around. Yet, each day, countless people around the country are suppressing their feelings, trying to pretend that everything is all right when, in actuality, it isn't.

Lucy Spraggan has been touched by this, and her new song 'Dear You' tackles this head-first. It's an honest, touching look at an issue many avoid, and the results rank among some of the singer's most moving work.

The video stars Thomas Turgoose – the actor who played Shaun Field in This Is England – and it's a bold, stark, hard-hitting look at the impact mental health issues can have.

The clip has gone viral, reaching a huge audience and becoming a real talking point. Clash caught up with Lucy Spraggan to find out more.

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‘Dear You’ is an extremely moving, very mature piece of songwriting. Can you remember what sparked it?
It was a bit of a gradual idea, I knew I wanted to cover mental health on my next record but wasn't sure how to narrate it. Initially, the idea was to write letters to the person listening but as I wrote it the story fell into place.

What made you tackle mental health in this manner?
My mental health has been pretty up and down over the years and I still have quite bad anxiety and paranoia. At at my lowest, I hit my absolute rock bottom and thought a lot about taking my own life. At that time I was convinced that keeping it to myself was the only thing that would help, when in reality, it was doing the opposite. I wanted to write a song that encouraged people to speak up and reach out because if you don't it can be fatal.

Mental health can strike anyone. What are your hopes for this song? Do you think music can help in struggles with depression, for example?
I've had some amazing feedback from 'Dear You', the most overwhelming feedback if from people telling me that it has encouraged them to speak up about their problems. To know that somebody, somewhere has taken that from this song is the best feeling in the world and that's all I ever really wanted from putting it out there. Releasing this has been really cathartic for me, as within the song I've spoken out about my troubles and I know a lot of artists do the same thing in their craft. Creativity is a very effective way of channeling feelings and emotions for so many, so I think music helps for sure.

The video perfectly matches the music. How involved were you? Do you like to be involved in all aspects of a release?
I wrote up the original story board and mood board soon after I'd recorded the song and sent it off to my friend Damien Reeves at Noise Box films. He was completely aware that I had a vision for this song/video and that I knew how I wanted it to look, so I definitely put him through his paces with that. I was on set for the whole shoot and at one point I was completely overwhelmed by how it had turned out. I am the director of CTRL Records so I am fully involved in all aspects of release; I find it very important and I feel extremely lucky to be able to in that position.

How did Thomas Turgoose come on board? Did you speak to him about the song, your intentions etc.?
Tom followed me on Twitter and I was well impressed! I followed him back and said if he's ever in Manchester he should give me a shout. We swapped numbers and he would FaceTime me whenever he was out drinking, we ended up chatting quite a bit and I sent him the song to see what he thought. I told him the ideas I had for the video and that I wanted it to work closely with mental health charities and asked him if he would be on board. He said yes and I was literally over the moon. The guy is a ridiculous talent and he was everything and more that I imagined the character to be.

Were you there for the shoot? How was it?
The reaction has been incredible. As I said, being there for the whole shoot was just so eye-opening, and not to mention emotional. Seeing something you envisioned come to life in that way is a total blessing.

What is it like to have people relate to closely to something you’ve created?
It makes me feel very fulfilled, far more so than any other song I've released. This time round I picked the song I wanted to put out and the reasons for it were so personal that I feel truly honoured when people tell me that it's made them consider how well they really are. I feel really lucky.

Will you be doing any follow up / charity work around mental health issues?
I've just become an ambassador for Young Minds which is a mental health charity focused on the younger generation and those less able to cope. I've been blogging for Rethink Mental Illness and Mind too, and I hope to do so much more.

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'Dear You' is out now.

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