Alex The Astronaut Dissects Her Raw And Beautiful Debut Album
"I wanted the songs to mean something to me, to sit in my values, and I also wanted them to be a group of songs that told stories that meant something to the people that heard them."
After bursting onto the Australian music landscape in 2016 with sharp and indelible singles like ‘Already Home’ and ‘Not Worth Hiding’, Alex The Astronaut — AKA Alexandra Lynn — has earned a reputation for crafting songs that examine our world with fresh and intelligent eyes. Her songs chronicle each uncomfortable corner of young life, its confusion and sadness and hedonistic rush.
In her debut album, The Theory Of Absolutely Nothing, Alex perfects this talent, delivering 10 tracks of brusque indie pop that tug at heartstrings and punch at guts.
“Releasing my first album feels like I’m graduating from junior musician to proper musician,” Alex The Astronaut says. “I have so many mind maps and brain storming pages in my writing book where I was trying to work out what I wanted it all to look like. I wanted the songs to mean something to me, to sit in my values, and I also wanted them to be a group of songs that told stories that meant something to the people that heard them.
“I feel really proud of all of these ten songs, it feels like I’ve put a little bit of myself and the world I see in all of them. I’ve spent hundreds of hours thinking about the writing them and I’m pretty nervous to share it all with everyone. I’ve called it The Theory of Absolutely Nothing because I feel like the Einstein quote “the more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know” really started to make sense to me during this writing process and apart of that comes through in a different way in each song.”
Alex the Astronaut unravels the meanings behind the 10 tracks below in an exclusive piece for Music Junkee. Dive in.
— Content Warning: This article discusses domestic violence. —
‘Happy Song’
‘Happy Song’ is stage two of ‘I Didn’t Know’ when I was just sad, starting to move on, and going out with friends. It follows us when we both really understood there was nothing left. I wanted to get across the feeling of just wanting to escape grieving the relationship and feeling a little bit of hope at a new life that is on the horizon.
The hypothetical “old bar” is a Long Island college bar called Mcheebes, which is a hell-hole of a place we used to go out to at school. I think this song is about growing up and letting go and getting out of that college stage where everything’s a mess while still holding a soft spot for the good times.
‘Lost’
‘Lost’ is about trying to find your way and fix everything, and the moment where you’ve exhausted all options and have to accept the fact that there is so much that is completely out of your control: sometimes you will just feel lost.
The song is pivoted around a moment of change when someone is walking new ground and they really don’t know what’s to come. For me it’s one of those “one goes out, one comes in” times when you lose what you hoped things would be like but you get to move through a different world that maybe will show you something you didn’t know you would see.
‘Split the Sky’
This song is about one of those things that makes you grow up a little bit faster than you’d like. Last year I went through one of those things when I became a carer for a loved one. I didn’t say any of what happened in the lyrics and that’s kind of how I want it to be, I wanted just to sing about that moment when you look back and around and up and down and try to figure out what is going on.
I don’t know if it’s just me looking around a bit more but it seems like the whole world is going through one of those times recently. I wanted to go back to being a kid and stop all this adult stuff from happening.
‘Split the Sky’ is a message of hope that I was trying to get myself to understand that no matter what happens you there will always be that kid waiting, that the seasons will fall around and you’ll be in the sun again at some point. Watching Harry Potter was good for me and something I could always go back to feel like that.
‘I Like to Dance’
I went to a BBQ and I was chatting to a judge. He told me about one of his cases that had shaken him up a bit. A woman had come in to court six months after she’d been beaten up by her boyfriend. They had photos of her injuries, which were horrific. She told the judge she’d lied and had fallen down the stairs.
They took her into a closed room and she stayed with her story that she’d lied until she broke down and said, “I just wish he’d stop hitting me.” The judge said he’d seen hundreds of domestic violence cases but he couldn’t get this one out of his head.
He said I need to write a song about it so I did my research and spoke to domestic violence liaison officers and workers and tried to create a story that would ring true. I wanted to put a woman’s story right in front of them that makes it too hard for people to separate them from the issue of violence.
— If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, domestic or family violence call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. If you need support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency, call 000.
Men can access anonymous confidential telephone counselling to help to stop using violent and controlling behaviour through the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491. —
‘I Didn’t Know’
I went through my first proper messy break up and I decided to write a song about it. I think I started writing in in a phase where I was really cranky and we were arguing a lot. I knew it was the end and I’d been denying all the issues until they slapped me in the face all at once. Then this word vomit demon of a song came out of me.
‘Caught In The Middle’
‘Caught In The Middle’ is one of my favourite songs I’ve written. It follows a group of friends that haven’t seen each other in a while. The speaker is welcoming a friend who they haven’t seen in a while. It’s a snap shot of a group of friends at a hypothetical party. George and Jen aren’t real people but I had a Jen in my song ‘What Sydney Looks Like In June’ and so I thought I’d carry on her character into this song. George and Jen are in the middle of learning how to balance their relationship.
Sam who finds out his baby is coming is Sam Cromack from Ball Park Music who had his first baby this year. I saw him through this wife’s pregnancy talking about the different stages of learning and becoming a dad, caught in the weight of bringing a human being into the world. He was a part of producing this which was pretty amazing and by the end of the album being recorded, his daughter Enid was born.
There’s a verse about me, where I explain what I’ve felt becoming a musician and the feeling of things coming together and being caught up in the whirlwind of music. The peak of the song is my favourite verse where I talk about my parents’ parties when I was growing up with all their closest friends. They used to (and sometimes still do) put a storage box in the middle of the living room, push the couches back and dance to ABBA and ‘Fat Bottom Girls’, ‘YMCA’, Robbie Williams. The police came by from noise complaints frequently.
They were so happy and, while I got cranky about the noise and the time, and walked upstairs when I was four and turned their music off, it’s a great memory I have. Mark, who’s quoted as playing the air guitar on his stage, was my second dad growing up and with his wife Sandy was always one of the last stragglers at mum and dad’s parties. Finally they say goodbye and the speaker tries to offer their friend some hope that they might be caught in the middle. The final line is a little bit on my perfectionism, that everyone is chasing after the life the they’re in.
‘Christmas in July’
I met someone and it felt like Christmas had come and I’d won the lottery at the same time. I feel like they took all the things that I knew and really flipped them on their head, which was exactly what I needed.
‘Banksia’
I got a text when I was going home on the train that a friend from my high school had passed away in a car accident. Her name was Maddie Clarke. She was a few weeks from getting her nursing degree and had a nice boyfriend.
I felt terrible that I hadn’t reached out more, she’d messaged me a few months before and I’d forgotten to reply. I said what I felt like I wanted to say through this song. Banskias are a native Australian flower that line lots of our suburban streets including the ones I walked down on my way home that day.
‘I Think You’re Great’
My best friend Curtis started looking for work after he left college. He’d had a huge community of friends in school, he played soccer and he’d made a little life for himself over in New York. He eventually got a sales job at staples and, even though he never complained, I felt like transition into the workplace was something that really impacted all of us. We mostly communicate via sending each other memes so I thought I should write a song telling him what he means to me and how grateful I am to him for being there when I’ve needed him.
‘San Francisco’
Watching the news is very sad at the moment and I wanted to try and talk about some of the beautiful things I’ve seen. I’ve never actually been to San Francisco, I googled the map lay out to make sure you could actually see the red bridge in West San Francisco which is in verse two and you can.
I chose San Francisco because I saw it in Inside Out and it looked like the perfect place that could be both really beautiful and terrible. I wanted to say that even though the world can be really horribly messed up there is a lot of beauty out there.
Thank you to Sam, Dan Nora, Jonathan, Holly, Jen, and Victor for making this album with me. I hope you all enjoy my first album, The Theory of Absolutely Nothing.
Alex The Astronaut’s The Theory Of Absolutely Nothing is out now.
Photo Credit: Jess Gleeson