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We spoke to the Radio Hayah playlisted singer Jess Barlow
The UK’s Bolton News, as is the way of newspapers, recently endeavoured to encapsulate the life of their interviewee in one pithy subhead. Writing about singer/songwriter Jess Barlow, whose "Someone Else's War" and "I Will Run" are currently on the Radio Hayah playlist, the paper penned, "Farnworth teenager who battled bulimia and depression and attempted to take her own life is now aiming for a music career after releasing her first song on iTunes." We spoke to Jess about her life and music.
In the video for the "Someone Else's War" single Jess wraps herself in chains. What's that about? "The chains represent things that are holding you back. If you watch the video, they're wrapped around my arms; at one point I try to pull them off and I can't. That represents stuff in the past I was consumed by - for example, self-harming, an eating disorder, depression. They're chains that are wrapped around me, then at the end of the video I unwrap them and that's me breaking free. 'Someone Else's War' was the first song I ever released. I wrote the song with Philippa Hanna, who is a good friend of mine."
Jess's background is distinctly musical. "I grew up in quite a musical family. My dad's a deejay, my brother is a musical theatre actor; I have cousins who are in bands. But I didn't start singing 'til I was about 15 years old - like six years ago - and I didn't start releasing music 'til last year, when 'Someone Else's War' was released. I'd love to do music as a career. Music is my passion. But the main passion for my music is to spread a message of hope and encouragement to young people who are struggling with things like I've been through. The focus of my music is that testimony of my life. When I was in school I was bullied quite badly, and it led to me developing mental health issues from quite a young age. I was probably 11 when I developed depression and the first time I self-harmed. One of the main reasons for this was being bullied every day at school, being called fat and ugly, not fitting in and having friends. I had to go to a different school because it was not a nice place to be in."
Jess continued, "I didn't know what to do. It's hurtful. When you're being bullied, you withdraw into yourself. You need to find a way to get that out, and for me that was self-harming. I didn't know what it was, I didn't know what I was doing: I was only 11. But there was a release in the pain. It led to years of struggling, years of isolating myself. I had cuts up my arms and I didn't want anybody to see them. It was quite a secretive coping mechanism. I went to university studying mental health nursing, and I had to leave the course because I wasn't very well. You can't study that kind of thing if you're not well yourself."
Things came to a head for Jess at university. She explained, "The university told me I couldn't continue my studies. When I first went, I wasn't a Christian. A few weeks into studying I started going to church; found God, got saved. The church I was at actually ran a programme for women with life-controlling issues. I spent two years in the programme fighting for my recovery. God gave me a whole new perspective on what I was going through. On my worst days I was like, 'Why am I even doing this? Why am I fighting every day? Why am I trying to get this thing people call freedom?' Crying out to God, praying 'God, give me some answers' - really helped me. Having faith that he will lead me where he wants me, that's the biggest thing that got me through."
I asked Jess, "Once you had God in your life, how did you start to respond to temptation?" She responded, "Before, I would just pick up a blade and harm myself, but when I became a Christian the first thing I would do is put on worship music. I'd pray, 'God, help me get through this urge.' There are Scriptures that say God will not lead you to anything that's beyond you. Those are the Scriptures I held onto in those times."
Jess went on to explain the inspiration behind her other radio hit "I Will Run". "In my recovery journey I reached a point where I was at a crossroads. Part of me wanted to go back to the eating disorder, the self-harming; part of me wanted to live in complete freedom and keep going on the journey; and part of me was like, 'Well, I'm half free and half not - maybe this is where I'm meant to stay.' I remember crying out to God, and God kept giving me this Scripture, Hebrews 12:1, 'Let us run the race marked out for us.' I clung onto that. I had this revelation that this is the race God wants me to run, or else I wouldn't be on it. I wanted to run that race, and not the race society is setting me or that I'm setting myself; I want to run the race God has set before me."
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