Cléo's Corner- Scribing Hymns With My Blue-Inked Pen
Over a year later
December 2023
Welcome to the first post on this segment, Cleo's Corner- Scribing Hymns With my Blue Inked Pen. I am so delighted to have you here. What a better way to start this off by discussing my debut album, Jeannie's Garden? My beloved.
Jeannie's Garden Album Cover
The Genesis
To understand how Jeannie’s Garden came to be, I have to fill you in as I walk down the corridors of the Cleo Luna June universe. To understand me, you have to understand my history. There’s a reason why my name is also derived from one of the Greek muses, the muse of history, to be exact.
The genesis of Jeannie’s Garden began when I was 15 years old. From the very beginning, I’ve always been an artist through different artistic mediums and it is at the core of my identity. More specifically, music was a huge part of my life growing up as I played a variety of different instruments, always loved singing and did choirs. Music was something I was always so deeply entranced by. I have a very active and intricate mind and being able to convey a specific message or feeling through music has always been quite satisfying. I experience everything so viscerally because I am deeply empathetic and sensitive to everything. It’s the perfect armour of an artist but it’s aluminium foil to the rest of the world.
As I entered high school, music started gradually fading into the background as other interests and pursuits were flashing in my direction. It wasn’t until a few years later right before the pandemic when I picked it up again when I started rediscovering everything I loved about music. As a teenager, I was always performing. Performing in performing arts, performing to be the perfect role model for youth that I mentored, performing to be a “good girl” that I thought everyone wanted me to be. There comes a point when you spend more time being other people than being yourself and you almost don’t recognize yourself anymore. I have a tendency to seek escapism in my life. Perhaps it stems from the feelings of being suffocated and stifled as a child as I was always quite wild and flamboyant and people around me didn’t know how to deal with that. However, in some ways, it benefits me as an artist because I can be transported outside of myself yet also at the same time bury myself within myself and experience and understand the depths of the human condition.
Reignition
Subsequently, as I picked up the craft of songwriting and music making, I found myself transformed and forever changed because of it as I found solace in songwriting and singing. It started off writing songs here and there and not being too serious about it because no one knew I was doing this. I don’t like to speak of things until they’ve come to fruition. It’s just me in my own world birthing and breathing my creations to life. In fact, Autumn Equinox was the second song I’ve ever written in my life and it became my debut single. It became the tour guide for Jeannie’s Garden as it hones in on the nature-centric themes of the album. I am psychic and I tend to get a lot of visions and vivid dreams. In the case of Autumn Equinox, I got a vision and feeling of the closure that fall brings and the beauty of death that births new beginnings. I was born in November and autumn is my favourite season because it’s the season of transformation and it's captivating how things are so beautiful as they are dying. Nothing is truly lost or wasted, it’s just energy that will be recycled.
I have this memory of me sitting in my pre-calculus 10 class, staring out a window, and watching these chickadees bouncing from branch to branch and it birthed the second verse of the song. Moments like these inspired and drove much of the album as the overall concept started to unfold. I am quite spiritual and I have a lot of faith and trust in the divine. When I make music, that’s when I feel most connected to Source. Sometimes, concepts, lyrics, and sounds just intuitively flow through me with ease and I become the medium in which the divine channels through me whatever I am meant to create. It’s freaky because it’s an out-of-body experience. This feeling never gets old.
Taking Shape
As Jeannie’s Garden started to take shape, I realized much of what I was writing about was things that I found beautiful and inspiring at that period of my life. Themes of optimism, hope, and resiliency echo through the skeleton of the album as I was also working through unprocessed grief in my healing journey. I don’t say this lightly but Jeannie’s Garden saved my life as I was suffering immensely from severe mental health issues. It is a testament to the power of music and the healing it can bring.
Furthermore, the role of the pandemic was an incubator for this mini passion project of mine because I was able to finally be with myself after years of intense busy schedules being in theatre, work, community service, etc. I finally had time to play and write and henceforth, fell in love with creating music. At the same time, I also had to make a graduating capstone project for my high school and it felt like the perfect opportunity to merge these two. I am already putting in all this effort behind closed doors, so I might as well take this opportunity and do something with it. I’ve always said that music has always been there for me when nothing else has and this added fuel to a fire that has been set ablaze. Nothing is stopping me now.
Creative Process
The creative process was all over the place. If there’s anything you need to know about me is that I always need a bit of chaos and messiness in my life to feel at an equilibrium. Ideas and lyrics could come to me in the middle of the night and I would stumble over to the closest instrument or if I was bored in class or lost in the woods, I would stop and drop everything to write it down or record it to come back to it. You cannot schedule creativity and magic moments like these. I welcome them with open arms, regardless of how inconvenient it is. For my art, I will sacrifice my peace.
I take a lot of inspiration from my personal life and integrate it into my art. I feel that my art is an extension of me. I don’t want children of my own and nurturing my artistry is like birthing new creations and I feel like a mother in that sense. Getting the cover art was also a spur-of-the-moment decision as well. My director had an umbrella that read “merde il pleut” which translates to “fuck the rain”. I thought that was so cheeky and perfect for the cover of the album because I reference rain and optimism throughout the album. It’s so sassy (like me). In relation to the naturalistic aesthetic of the album, I wanted to make the tracks acoustic and demo-like because I love folk music and was obsessed with it when I was creating this album. The overall composition of the album is very poetic because I am a poet at heart and felt most natural to me at the time. I am always writing and there’s always something happening inside my mind. Some of the tracks started as poems with no intention of becoming songs and others came from free-styling. I would rush home after school or rehearsals or hide away during breaks to work on my music and keep revising and refining because, by this point, Jeannie’s Garden had become larger than life for me and more than just a small side project. It had taken over my consciousness.
Creative Vision
Having complete control over the entire album was something I was adamant about throughout the entire process. It’s my first album and I want it to be exactly the way I wanted it to be and not have it interfered with someone else’s creative vision. I did all my own vocals both lead and backing. The cover was shot and edited by me. Most notably, I wrote and produced all the songs. I paid close attention to the order of the track list and I arranged it so that it would “travel by the seasons”. Needless to say, it’s got my handprints all over it. I didn’t strive for perfection as it’s my first record and I had zero prior experience in music production. I learn best when I am jumping head-first into something and learning on the go, and this was no exception.
When making an album, I like to have an overall concept or a mood board because I like having a cohesive body of work. For Jeannie’s Garden, I had photos of nature, wilderness, fairies, and anything that evoked woodland mysticism which overall helped me conceptualize the body of art. Fragrance is also a huge passion of mine. Wonderland Peony and Sunflower Pop by Floral Street and English Pear & Freesia, Wild Bluebells, Nectarine Blossom & Honeysuckle, and Wood Sage and Sea Salt by Jo Malone specifically smell like Jeannie’s Garden to me. Those were also the scents I exclusively wore when working on this. Every time I get a whiff of these, I am instantly 17 again and I am Cléo Luna June in my Jeannie's Garden era.
When deciding what I wanted to name the album, I waited until the end to decide between the tracklist and which track would be crowned the title track honour. In the back of my mind for the longest time, I thought the album would be called Wildflower but there were already hundreds of Wildflower songs or albums and I wanted something that was the first of its kind. The next contender was Jeannie’s Garden because of the themes within the song of resiliency, hope, and rain which fit closely with the other thematic elements throughout the record. Also bonus, there wasn’t anything called Jeannie's Garden before on streaming.
I still remember the day I published Jeannie’s Garden online. I didn’t tell anyone about it and it was so strange walking around and going to class and trying to act normal and no one had a clue because otherwise, I would have been an absolute lunatic. It’s close to the feeling of letting my little birdie fly for the first time. This precious and intimate thing was with me for the last few years of my life and now it's for the rest of the world to enjoy.
Aftermath
The aftermath of the release changed the entire trajectory of my life. Up until this point, I was dead serious about becoming a marine biologist or doing something in mental health. But now, I was rethinking everything as this creative process was a “glimmer” moment for me. So many cool opportunities and connections made followed suit after the release. I even did an interview with my local news for Jeannie’s Garden and that was a huge pinch-me moment. I grew so much self-awareness, self-actualization, and understanding of life and nature through this process and it has since followed me today. I’m happy to say that I am now at a contemporary performing arts university that helps me build my artistry as Cléo Luna June.
Looking back, I’ve changed so much as a person and Jeannie’s Garden is a time capsule of who I was when I was 15-17. It’s the physical embodiment of everything that my younger self found inspiring and beautiful. I think there’s something special about immortalizing that version of yourself. I mean, when I’m sad, I just have to listen to Heliotropic and Jeannie’s Garden title track and listen to my younger self tell my current self “damn girl” or “everything is going to be okay”. No one else’s words can hit me the same as my own. Revisiting Jeannie’s Garden feels like reconnecting with an old friend again. I can still feel the passion and love for this creative process radiating throughout this body of work.
It’s insurmountable the impact that Jeannie’s Garden made on my life. To love is to be transformed and the love that I have cultivated for my artistry is something I cherish and hope to keep for the rest of my life. It’s spiritual to me. I was born to be an artist. I don’t think I’ll ever experience a love as prolific as the love I have for creating art. It's funny how a small distant dream of mine when I was younger became a reality and changed my entire life.
Special Memory
Jeannie's Garden is a gift that keeps on giving. One of my dearest memories is reconnecting with my old music teacher, the very person who taught me how to play guitar. I was so deeply impacted by him as a kid and I've always remembered him. He radiated this sparkling energy and you can tell right away that he's so passionate and connected to music and in return, that also made me fall deeper in love with music too. I found out his trio group was playing at a local bar and I brought my best friend, Abby with me (she's the best friend referenced in JG 😉) and I wanted to share my appreciation for him and the impact he made on my life and how that lead to Jeannie's Garden. Up until this moment, I had not seen or talked to him since I was in grade 4. I had no idea if he would remember me at all. So Abby and I walked in and right away, we spotted him and he looked exactly the same. We were both so nervous, excited, and I could feel the jitters and the adrenaline pulsating through me. It was a Thursday night and this sweet waitress was probably not expecting to serve us flustered and manic teenage girls. As she was serving us, I couldn't keep it in anymore and I filled her in with all the details and she became extremely invested too. Soon the rest of the wait staff were also invested because it was a quiet Thursday evening and we were the talk of the night.
Watching my old music teacher play was so revitalizing. I love people-watching in general but there's something special about watching people in their element. The little bobs in the heads, the sparkle in the air and the incredible jazz that filled the space. It's the same kind of magic right before a show and the curtains rising for a live show. As they hit their intermission, Abby and I knew it was our chance to talk to him. As we got up to go to the stage, he got off and was walking in our direction. He stops in front of our table and he looks me dead in the eyes and asks, "Do I know you from somewhere?". Deceased.
I don't even remember exactly what I said because it was just me word vomiting. But he was so incredibly sweet and still had the same sparkling aura that I remembered about him as a kid. Seeing him perform was also so magical and breathed so much life into me and how I could do this "for real". Music is so transcendent. That was one of my proudest moments, showing him Jeannie's Garden and being able to express appreciation and gratitude. I always like to go the extra mile and thank everyone who has ever helped or supported me in any capacity. So random, but I remember buying a Beatles poster on the side of the road on the way home and it always reminds me of this memory.
Where I am now
My dear Junebugs wondering where I am now… It’s been almost 2 years since the release of Jeannie’s Garden and I have been working on my second album. I released star sister back in August and that’s the first rock song in our CLJ universe. Like I mentioned above, I don’t like to speak on things before they are almost completed but what I can share is that CLJ2 will have a different sound and you will see a different side to me. It does include a few collaborations. At the time I am writing this, the title has been decided and writing for the record is finished.
Thank you for your patience, I like to take my time to make something I am truly proud of. Your support has brought so much love and light into my life. I am eternally grateful to be able to make art and to have my Junebugs support me every step of the way. I hope I can feel this way for the rest of my life.
<33 CLJ
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