Happy Ears: Put Me Under by In Earnest
By Sarah Holburn
Zoom into a bungalow in a quiet street in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. It is February 2019. Pan across to Sarah making dinner for two Shih Tzus. Pan down to Sarah’s notepad with the title ‘Put Me Under’ at the top and illegible handwriting in messy lines underneath, a guitar out of focus in the back of the shot.
Sarah first came up with the idea of the song when she was on a dog sit (somehow she gets to look after dogs for a living!). At the time of writing, she really struggled with how debilitating her sickly cocktail mixture of chronic depression and Generalised Anxiety Disorder actually were. She wanted to create an honest account of how her mental illness affects every part of her life from career to relationships to daily routine and everything in between. She also tried to encapsulate how much dogs are part of her life now, and how they help her combat loneliness.
“She wanted to create an honest account of how her mental illness affects every part of her life from career to relationships to daily routine and everything in between.”
Writing music serves a therapeutic purpose for Sarah, so she’ll go months without writing anything and, when she really needs an outlet, lyrics will flow out of her. Depression has become part of her music, and music part of the depression. During the creative process of Put Me Under, she used a stream-of-consciousness format for her lyrics, and used the picking guitar part to reflect the monotony of day-to-day life with a mental illness.
Fast forward four months. Zoom into a barn in the middle of nowhere. Three musicians who call themselves ‘In Earnest’ create their own makeshift studio in the barn with their producer, Peter Waterman. Sarah suggests they record her song called Put Me Under. Thankfully everyone else says yes.
Fast forward to April 2020. The UK is in a Covid-19 lockdown. Sarah is at home, typing up interviews for the Put Me Under release. She wants you all to listen to the song. Please.
Fast forward another few months in the future. In Earnest are now preparing for their next single ‘Come Upstairs’ to be released. It is written from Tom’s perspective on how he copes with Sarah and her mental illness. The band hope you will watch them play out their future scenes.