Why reinventing yourself should be fun

It’s no secret that I’m enamored with growth, it’s the central theme of my last project and remains a guiding principal in my life. When writing Everything is Growing, Am I? I reflected on all the many changes I was feeling at the time. I began shedding the self that people had come to expect while also plotting seeds for who I’d like to become. Ultimately this led me to write about this cycle of reinvention through the eternal life, death and rebirth in our natural world, rather than focus on a single identity.

What I found through crafting this project is that I began to focus on all the minute details, hoping that my reinvention translated as an elevated artistic project. The lyrics captured a poetic sense of rebirth, I meticulously picked sounds to represent these themes and the visuals were crammed with intentional choices that brought the messaging alive. And I’m proud of what was created.

But somewhere down the line I realized that I hadn’t created with the joy that came from exploring new parts of your identity. Art can be poured from many wells, but the one I was pulling from had started to come up dry. Knowing that I would run into frustration if I approached the final music video from this same drawing board, I wanted to approach Till Until differently.

In many ways, we create the future by revisiting the past. Wanting to draw inspiration from a place of childlike joy and wonder, I looked backward.

My earliest musical memory is the Wee Sing VHS specials, and my favorite was Wee Sing in Sillyville. The setting was a fictional town filled with colorful characters and a blended reality where humans, puppets and animals all coexisted. To this day, I still quote its songs with my siblings and have even incorporated the messages in my own music education instruction. I knew that I had to reference this in some way and honor what made me fall in love with music.

I also knew that while soft and silly, the main theme of Till Until had some weight to it. The lyrics essentially state that the garden must be destroyed in order to start over. I wanted to honor the gravity of reinvention, given that it’s a rather heavy topic. Naturally it made me think of the Twilight Zone. I had occasionally watched it as a teenager, and ended up being in a stage adaption of four episodes while in high school. I was incredibly drawn to the strangeness of it all , these very human thoughts and lessons packed into a world that still felt removed from ours.

It was the perfect combination; despite being so different in medium, both programs were meant to educate and leave their audiences with important life messages. The marriage of Twilight Zone and children’s programming led me to my friend Malheurt. They’re a very talented drag artist and puppet maker in Chicago, and I knew I had to commission from them for this video. They made three “Tommy” puppets, each donning an outfit from one of the EIGAI? music videos, and they are absolutely ADORABLE.

It felt so right that the rebirth of Till Until came from talking to my past selves in a very lighthearted way. Often times, self reflection is made to be this very serious and personal thing. We have to journal and we have to check in, look at what’s not serving us and take action after that. It’s a difficult and lonely process even though the purpose of it is meant to foster human connection. There’s so many things to stay conscious of and I wanted none of them to be present in this video. Growth is deep, constant and eternal but it’s also rather funny. You shake your head at previous actions, as if an old friend tells you their stories and they’re not your memories at all. Reflection is laughable and it makes you feel a child to have made the choices and mistakes you did, but it’s the chuckling through your psyche that propels you into a new reality. Laugh it off, and move on!

In Mr. Tommy’s neighborhood, you can talk with your past selves and it’s FUN. They represent a very specific version of you stamped in time and they’re in cute little outfits!! You smile at the things you have in common, reminisce on shared experiences and ultimately leave that self in this other world after learning from it. Exploring your different identities should be full of color, whimsy and wonder. GOD this world is already so serious, why make it more difficult by thinking that growth and change are these adult, very boring actions?

Watch the Till Until Music Video

It was Jack, the director’s idea to have this sequence out in the way it did. Tommy was in the Twilight Zone, focused on all these grandiose themes of evolution before turning on the TV. The program he selected ends up being his own. The viewer is pulled into the garden of Till Until with him, as Tommy begins to converse with the versions of him that were in the Until Death, Worship and Like No Other videos. His neighbor, played by my dear friend and drag legend Neutral Gena, joins the group and together they all read Everything is Growing, Am I? Tommy tells them that disillusionment has found the roots, and that a rebirth is coming. He’ll till and till and till until it’s time to start over, and over and over. The story ends and Tommy is left to think about this reinvention, playing at the piano while the credits roll and the puppets frolic. It’s all rather cute, and it should be!

I’m fighting tears and struggling to not overindulge in explaining all the meaning I rediscovered in making this video, but ultimately I’d just like to tell you how much fun it was to create. It was such a joy to be on set without a plan other than to laugh and play with the props! Coming off of 5 very carefully planned and plotted videos, it felt right to just mess around with an idea. I think in a way it really healed my artistic vision and sense of self, bringing me closer to the freedom that spurs creativity. After writing this very introspective and philosophical EP about containing multitudes, I felt it time to bring out the one that gets to be silly.

My goal with this entire project was to inspire change in the people who listened, to let everyone know that the depth of their potential is never ending and that exploring it should be pleasurable. I hope you get to chat with puppet versions of yourself and take some weight off of rebirth. Though we have many selves, we only get one true life and it deserves to be lighthearted. No journey is complete with some comic relief!

That’s all from me in this musing. I hope you enjoy the final music video. It may be the last song from Everything is Growing, Am I? but that does not mean this era is over just yet… More soon

xo,

~tommy