Why is everyone talking about Lewis Capaldi? Aren’t we supposed to be all freaking out about Taylor Swift tickets?
Trust me – lots of us ARE freaking out about Taylor Swift tickets. In the meantime, however, Capaldi has evoked enormous sympathy after announcing he’s taking a break from touring. He is to focus on his mental health after losing his voice at Glastonbury, when the audience movingly sang his part for him. Check it out on YouTube if you fancy a cry.
Wow, I didn’t realise playing Dr Who was so draining…
That’s Peter Capaldi, Lewis’s second cousin once removed. Lewis Capaldi is a 26-year-old songwriter from a village near Edinburgh.
So… Scotland’s Ed Sheeran?
Well, everyone gets their own Ed Sheeran, don’t they? Ireland has Dermot Kennedy and Hozier (more “Hedge Sheeran”, with all that hair), England has George Ezra as well, and Scotland has Capaldi.
Sounds pretty generic…
Well, he isn’t going to be confused with My Bloody Valentine. But while his music is quite mainstream, it’s also extremely heartfelt. His big hit Someone You Loved – the one the audience sang to him at Glastonbury – is about his late grandmother.
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I see he’s headlining Electric Picnic?
He WAS headlining Electric Picnic. But he will now skip the festival as he takes time away “to rest and recover”.
And presumably, get his voice back.
It’s not so much his voice as his diagnosis with Tourette’s syndrome, which is characterised by vocal tics and jerking movements. That diagnosis is a major part of How I’m Feeling Now, his recent Netflix documentary.
Sounds like heavy going.
Well, that’s the thing: while his songs are very emotional, his on-stage banter is hilarious. He’s an incredibly funny man – though perhaps that is a coping mechanism for the nerves and stress. His friend Niall Horan recently told The Irish Times, “Everyone looks at Capaldi and sees the funniest man in the world. No one knows the other side: that he struggles with his mental health and his anxiety. It’s important to know both sides: that he’s not just a comedian up there.”
He doesn’t sound cut out for fame.
Capaldi seemed unusually well-prepared early on. When he was playing smaller venues, such as Dublin’s Olympia, he gave the impression of someone going into the vortex with his eyes fully open. “It’s not been a normal one,” he said in 2018, reflecting on his dizzying rise. “It’s been pretty mad. Hopefully, it won’t slow down, and I become unemployed… I didn’t want to be famous. I wanted to do something in music: if that was teaching music or playing in a wedding band, that would be fine.”
Aren’t all pop stars always talking about their mental health nowadays?
It’s undoubtedly more commonplace, and that is surely a good thing. Ed Sheeran has talked openly about the grief he felt after the death of his friend Jamal Edwards in his Disney+ documentary, The Sum of It All. And Taylor Swift was frank about her troubles on Miss Americana on Netflix. It’s got to be better than the bad old days when stars were often overwhelmed by fame, the scrutiny and the workload, and either kept it to themselves or tried to medicate the pain with drugs and alcohol.
So what next?
Hopefully, Capaldi can recover and adjust to the demands of managing a challenging condition with the spotlight on him.
And what about Electric Picnic?
Capaldi was the big Saturday headliner alongside DJ and producer Fred Again at the festival, which runs from September 1st to 3rd. So Electric Picnic will have to either bump up another act to the headline slot or find a replacement. It’s still an unknown.
