This is a song about learning to live with fear. I am quite a fearful person and sometimes that can become paralysing, especially when it’s a nighttime spiral. This song, for me, acts as a reminder. To learn to sit with my fear, and let it rage out for a bit. More often than not, like any storm, it will die down.
The music video was created with some of my closest people, the wonderful David Spearing and Joseph Bisat Marshall. We wanted to create a perfect little miniature town, and slowly let fear infect it.. in the shape of a massive Tess boogieman.
This is the first song from my new upcoming album “The Lighthouse”, which will be released on January 23, 2026.
When I wrote this song we were staying in a family home in the French countryside, a stone’s throw from the village graveyard. It was a particularly freezing and misty week, and there was a spookiness in the air.
I was curled up on the sofa with my guitar, staring into the log fire we relied on to keep us warm. Lost in thought…
and “The Bricks that Make the Building” poured out.
A song about ancestry. The passing of the torch. The gifting of time. I was raised by two lesbian mothers and lost one of them when I was a young teenager. So it makes sense that the concept of mortality and what we leave behind has always loomed large in my life. The lyrics are written from two perspectives - the perspective of a spirit, visiting their old home and watching the next generation going about their evening. And the perspective of the child, considering their heritage. As I was that night on the sofa.
Happy listening. Share it with somebody you love if you like it. Have a beautiful day.