Security Blanket by Francis Black

Security Blanket

I started this project thinking about one of my most lingering childhood sound-memories – the hit musical Joseph and his Amazing Technicoloured Dream Coat. I used to sit on my parents’ lounge floor and listen to it on their record player. I was genuinely moved by the story – all the songs, the silly anachronisms, and most of all, by Joseph, the heroic, self-possessed young dreamer, destined for greater things than all his eleven brothers.
Reflecting on why I chose the record, I realised my attachment to it was to do with an enchanted view I cling to of me as a child. I’m very interested in the way I, and probably many people, attach themselves to childhood behaviours, interests, quirks, as a way of viewing themselves, or even, to provide a degree of exceptionalism to their character. I have always really enjoyed the fact that I so loved the musical, it has endeared myself to myself. Because it’s something I did while very young, it seems innocent and authentic. There aren’t the additional layers to appreciation that slip in with adulthood – I didn’t like the musical because I thought it was a bit odd or interesting to do so, I was just moved. So, it feels like an insight into myself, something that’s very me.
This is all good and well, I don’t think its bad to have these little markers of self. I do however also think that they can become stagnating, and I feel that I need to let go of this one. So, these sound pieces are basically about letting go of protective self-narratives that lock you in, that trap you in a haze of self-idolisation. The idea I’m going for resonates with a film I once watched, an adaptation of Sir Gawan and the Green Knight. At the end of the film, when Gawan is finally forced to kneel before the green knight’s axe and accept his fate, he pauses to remove the protective charm his mother had given him on the beginning of his quest. In doing this, he is then able to face the knight’s axe in earnest, no longer hiding behind meagre defences that prolong the inevitable. This is the way I wanted to break up my attachment to sentiment around this musical