Marsha Swanson is one of the most exciting new artists in the progressive pop movement. Her latest single is called "Generational Transmission" and is shared alongside a creative claymation video by Sam Chegini. The enthralling release features emotive piano chords, mood-laced rhythms and Swanson's signature mesmerizing vocal tone. Soaring melodies sing lyrics about family legacy, biology, trauma and hope.
We chat with the creator all about her inspiration, new music, foray into claymation and more. The result is a dynamic and irresistible read, just like the artist herself.
“Generational Transmission” explores the impact of family legacy. What personal experiences inspired you to tackle this theme in your music?
I wrote this song when my daughter was of an age to understand something more about my actions and behaviors. With this, came a greater incentive to be conscious about what I was modeling for her.
A generational transmission that I became aware of was my drive to protect my daughter’s birthday celebrations at any cost! They did not need protecting, it was my childhood birthdays that did. I remember a strange mixture of feelings that were always around in the run up to my birthdays each year as a child. My father was distracted, unavailable, not quite joining in with the birthday planning and I did not understand what was wrong. It was only when older that I could understand that it wasn’t my birth that had caused the unnamed atmosphere that I re-felt each year.
Born just two days after my paternal grandmother’s early death to cancer, historically my childhood birthdays were also anniversaries of loss for my father. Even into adulthood when I intellectually understood, there were still some annoyances that family birthday get-togethers had to be organised around the annual memorial visits, candles for the cake too close to candles of remembrance!
After my daughter’s 6th birthday when her party had become noticeably extravagant, my best friend pulled me aside to gently tell me that this really wasn’t what was needed. Kitted out from head to toe in an Elsa dress from Frozen, with hair professionally curled and a matching cake more wedding worthy than a little girls party, I had to concede that something else was occurring!
As much as I told myself it was just fun, there was a hidden anxiety behind the over-the-top birthday gifts. When we try too hard to change something we often fail by swinging too far to the opposite pole. In this way, we are still caught in the pattern we are trying to move away from. It took me a few years before I arrived at something more balanced and it was from this newfound position that I wrote the song.
None of us choose the families that we are born into and yet our lives are disproportionately shaped by them, even from within the womb! As children we pick up the non-verbal communications from our parents, the hidden pain behind a smile or the anxiety behind a rigid rule. This is why pre-verbal wounds are always the hardest. I was pleased to have arrived at a point in mothering where I could not only make changes, but also be able to explain them.
How did your childhood memory of Hugo the Hippo influence the narrative or mood of the song?
As a child of the 70’s, weekends were spent with my big brother lounging in front of the T.V. for fun fights and frosties! There was this magical cartoon that we loved from a faraway land with songs that I learned the words of off by heart. It took some historical digging to finally re-trace it and realise its influence. A Hungarian-American animated musical set in Zanzibar called, “Hugo the Hippo”. The Sultan’s harbour becomes overrun with great white sharks, halting trade, with danger looming for port workers. I remember the powerful images of men wading through the water passing on to each other these heavy parcels of clothes which were loaded onto the big container ships. Although I didn’t understand the meaning of what I was seeing as a child, the images of these long lines of people all acting together in a communal way registered at a deep level. The music hypnotised me with its powerful rhythms, vocal harmonies and deep paternal vocal resonance. The lyrics were memorable and haunting, “Sing song, pass it along, this is the same song your fathers before you have sung.” The visual images of the men pulling the rope in time to the rhythm was mesmerising. At the crux was a sense of tradition and something being passed down through family. The refrain acts as a bridge between past and present, a reminder of endurance, and the remedy that sustains a community of families through hardship. This is the message that got inside me as a child and then resonated later with me as an adult, ultimately inspiring my own version. It is definitely worth a listen!
You shifted from piano to keyboard for this track. How did that choice affect the composition and overall feel of the song?
Significantly. Moving to the keyboard was a piece of homework from my then piano teacher. He cited Freddie Mercury’s performance on “Who wants to live forever” as an example of how a vocal melody can fly when not being constrained by the piano rhythm. It resonated, enabling me to both slow down and create space. As the first song I’d written on the keyboard for years, it transported me back to an earlier period in my songwriting history evoking childhood musical memories.
This is your first claymation project with Sam Chegini. What made clay the right medium to convey your song’s message?
We come from earth, so clay felt a profound medium with which to explore themes of ancestry from. Conjuring up ancient primitive beginnings, clay brings all the richness of associations with Neolithic or New Stone age to the fore. Sam’s first instinct to use Clay was also conceptual. He explains, “When you mix clays of different colours together, a darker shade emerges that can never be undone”. We considered water colours as another medium that could show the impact of mergers, but clay was more substantial, allowing us to physically embody the message.
Metaphorically, clay, like us, is malleable, it can be sculpted and formed. We don’t have memory of our prior shape but we carry it nevertheless. We are discovering more all the time about epigenetics and how the genes we carry from our ancestors can be switched on or off given the right environmental factors. In the video transitions, this theme is mirrored as we see splashes of clay from different generations actively transforming the colour of the protagonist accumulatively.
Can you explain the symbolism behind “Clayton” and “Clayopatra” and how they represent memory and identity?
The clay figures were so powerful and moving they deserved to have names. Cleopatra was a brilliant stateswoman who spoke many languages, and we now know that our earliest mothers were not primitive savages, but brave people with symbolism and creativity who lived their lives in impossibly hard conditions. Clayton means “from the town on clay land” and is derived from the old English word Clay so it was a perfect origin name. Our stories are part of our personal identity even when we don’t think they are, just as we are part of everything we dream.
Your description mentions the protagonist’s glow changing throughout the video. How did you and the team decide on these visual cues to reflect the emotional journey?
The idea of the glow came from Sam. I couldn’t believe it when only days after our discussion, I found a newspaper article stating that humans do emit a faint glow, which also goes when we die. As Sam said, “We all carry within us a spirit, an inner energy field that both science and spirituality acknowledge in different ways. In many traditions, this is visualized as an aura, a shifting spectrum of light that reflects our emotional, mental and spiritual state. Modern science, too, recognizes that energy manifests in frequencies and vibrations, often expressed metaphorically through light and colour. In our story, I wanted to translate this invisible journey into a visible form. The protagonist’s aura shifts in colour, temperature and intensity as they move through different phases of transformation. At times, the light dims, flickers, or fades almost entirely, mirroring moments of struggle or loss. Midway through the narrative, the flickering signals a threshold, a fragile state where hope is tested. By the end, when the hand reaches back to reclaim the inner light, it reignites with renewed brilliance, symbolising resilience, rebirth, and the enduring strength of the human spirit”.
You mention the idea of “the positive difference that can be made over what is transmitted.” How do you hope listeners interpret or apply this message in their own lives?
I hope the music conveys the gifts, curses, and complexities of generational transmission. We can spend a lifetime recovering from some of what is passed down, whilst easily forgetting the gifts that come to us effortlessly. The positive difference that can be made over what is transmitted, can be best summarised by the quote from Psychoanalyst Carl Jung “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”. I hope that others can face their unique mix, not only to inform the next generation but to aid their differentiation and therefore, liberation.
The song reflects both trauma and hope across generations. How do you balance these heavier themes with musicality that engages the listener?
The music is a product of the emotions I was feeling when writing it. Whilst the theme is heavy, I wasn’t feeling burdened by the weight of it, more engaged, inspired and earnestly hopeful about the part we can each play in our future outcomes. Hopefully those feelings come through in the music.
In your journey as a songwriter, how has exploring family legacy shaped your approach to storytelling in general?
I come from a family who are interested in how generational gifts and burdens work their way through, so my songs and music have that blessing to explore. I write about the things that I observe, either in my own life or in other peoples and that has remained a constant in my life.
Being in a sandwich generation, the privilege to witness and learn from my parent’s generational struggles, has aided my understanding further. My grandparents didn’t speak directly about the impact of war or separation but it was visible to my parents in their everyday actions. My grandmother claimed to love the fresh air and I remember her opening all the windows even when it was cold outside and we were all freezing! I later learned that this was her attempt to hide a deep-rooted claustrophobia. Conversely, my grandfather, whose mother was illiterate due to lack of access to education, went on to become Head Teacher of several special schools for young people and children with learning disability. His vision of care in the community and championing of the rights of people with learning difficulties is an area of interest and work that has found its way to me. The children’s well-being musical resource for schools that I am currently developing, www.troublechutes.co.uk is something that I know would be right up his street!
On the music side, I know that my maternal Great Grandfather played the piano for silent movies and my father was related to Classical Composer Gustav Mahler. His legacy has been the subject matter of two pieces on my album, Near Life Experience. The instrumental, “In touch” also features the voices of both my daughter and my mother”. I was aware of a fleeting opportunity to capture 3 generations of female voice while my daughter was still willing and my mother was still alive!
Family legacy has played a bigger part in my storytelling on this album because of the premature death of my loved older brother to cancer. I was pleased to be able to turn his guitar riff and melody sent to me by email into what became the “Like an angel” song. He didn’t hear the released version but he loved the demo and really hoped I would include it on the album. He stays with me – both the joy and the loss – and I carry his approach, to find the beauty in life, even amidst the suffering.
Ashley Montagu the famous anthropologist put human struggles in perspective in his brilliant quote, “The first 100,000 years are always the hardest.” Against the vast backdrop of evolution and human history, compared to the enormity of our species’ journey, our present-day challenges are just a continuation of a very long, tough road.
How do you see your music evolving after "Generational Transmission", both sonically and thematically?
I do not know what I will be writing about in the future nor the direction that it will take sonically as that cannot be decided independently of the content I am writing about, but I do trust in the process. So long as I am physically well and healthy, and as long as there is still a world to process, the music will naturally evolve with me. Here’s hoping that like Clayton, I can live alongside whatever hardships come my way, whilst still retaining my inner glow.
What's next for Marsha Swanson?
I don’t like to give too much away, but if you consider that I have been gradually visualising all of the tracks from Near Life Experience, you may be able to work out what is coming next, and how that will serve the complete cycle and theme of Near Life Experience conceptually!
Connect with Marsha Swanson: INSTAGRAM
