Sydney singer/songwriter Georgia June recently released a new single called “Prove Myself”. It’s a song about time, doubt and the feeling of inadequacy. She’s chosen to expand on those themes in this Soapbox piece.
It was only while recording our debut body of work that I faced the fact that I’m quite a vulnerable person. 99% of the time I’m super perky and a huge optimist, so the idea that I’m not happy 24 hours a day wasn’t easy to swallow. I think I reason the sadness found in our music with moments, every song has its own memory, which means that I don’t feel like this all time, but every now and then I do – and that’s okay.
Throughout my schooling there was always a cloud of self-doubt following me around. Til this day, that cloud comes around every now and then, but I’m lucky that I keep busy so I never have time to think about it. “Prove Myself” is a window into all my literal insecurities and thoughts that circle me when that time comes (I’ve noticed a trend – it usually comes biannually).
I have always been scared of not being good enough for my friends, family and career…
A lot of young people are faced with the fear of not amounting to other people’s expectations. I have always been scared of not being good enough for my friends, family and career, and a more recent fear is not being good enough to reach the goals I set for myself. The cloud of self-doubt is definitely a feeling which I think is most prominent in teenagers. I’m no psychologist, but I think low self-worth and confidence tend to cause young people in a spiral. I have always been super intrigued by teenagers; my mum is a high school teacher and she always brought me into her classes to meet her students as well as events – I loved every minute of it. Partly because I enjoy meeting new people, but also because I was exposed to a lot of different upbringings and personalities in situations where I was merely an observer.
As a young person you’re forced to make so many decisions, whilst also being bombarded with outrageous beauty standards, pressures of success, unstable friendships plus crazy hormones. It’s a lot, and I know that for me personally, all these aspects boxed me up and I did a lot of my growing by myself. I was way too self-conscious to actually talk to people about what I was thinking, which is probably why I fell into music and why I think a lot of teenagers become so obsessed with music. That’s why I’ve never understood when people become so judgemental and condescending towards teenagers at concerts or when they see them impatiently lining up to see their favourite artist. I was exactly that as a teenager to artists like Justin Bieber and The 1975 (still kind of am). They’ve found something in that music at such a stressful point in their lives that they can attach themselves to, a relatable lyric that grounds them and I hope I can make young people feel like that too.
When I was a teenager (I’m 20 so sometimes I still classify myself as a quasi-teenager) all I wanted was to watch the videos I had on my crappy camera back of Pink singing “Sober”, and maybe now it’s Instagram stories on an iPhone Xs, but the feeling is the same.
