Clare Bowditch is an illustrious woman and one of Australia’s finest and most respected female singers. Her highly anticipated upcoming album The Winter I Chose Happiness is set to be released on the 14th of September. The album unveils the true reality of life, establishing that despite the seeming effortlessly perfect life of Clare Bowditch she, like everyone else, exists in a constant pursuit of happiness. The Winter I Chose Happiness is a result of an accumulation of Clare’s musings, philosophising and daydreams over the past two years as she learnt to handle the trials of existence and the suffering of the world. As the title implies, Clare ultimately learns to balance her disastrous thoughts and, though she once thought it was impossible to “squeeze in happiness”, she now ensures the presence of joy in her life.
The album commences with a short song, Lets Be Happy Together, that acts as an invitation to the listeners to internalise Clare’s discoveries and follow her path towards an enhanced life experience. This acknowledgement that everyone is striving to secure a sense of happiness is a result of Clare’s recent tour with Leonard Cohen. The renowned older singer had revealed the details of his own pursuit of joy and allowed the two to recognise that “we’re all on the same adventure”.
The aforementioned two themes, that it is possible to include happiness in your life and that each individual is continuously striving to accomplish this, are the underlying messages of each song on the album. The album encompasses mention of several universal trials of life, including the complexities of relationships, the skirmishes of love, and the realisation that you can’t reverse time and reclaim your glory days. It concludes with the track Are You Ready for Happiness?, a direct challenge to her listeners to actively pursue happiness, wisdom and joy as Clare herself has done.
If you’re looking for an album to wash over you as you soak in the sun or an album to help you drift to sleep, The Winter I Chose Happiness is the one. With an almost ethereal quality, the heavenly voice of Clare Bowditch is enough to break through the toughest skin. However, the album is far more than a whimsical lullaby, it’s a philosophical challenge to her listeners to ensure their lives are beset with happiness, summarised in the final song, Are You Ready to Be Happy?.
The Winter I Chose Happiness transcends the aims of an average album as it’s not just a collection of tracks, it’s an accumulation of an individual’s desire to improve the world, and as such is brimming with the potential to alter lives and challenge complacency. Clare Bowditch has created an album to answer the desire, wishes and prayers of thousands simply by turning her own journey into a musical masterpiece because, as most musicians will inform you, there is no force more powerful than music.
