Ink Studies
Alongside this post is a set of ink studies, one for each song. They aren’t finished pieces, and they aren’t meant to be deep works of art. They are quick, instinctive responses to how each song made me feel. Each one was meant to take no more than ten minutes, using just black ink, a watered-down wash and clean water. Most of them took me twice that. I’ve been finding it really hard to focus lately. Putting the album on and picking up the ink was something I could still do.
This is a love letter to an album that came out during a profound period in my life. Duncan Laurence’s album Small Town Boy was released in November 2020, during a challenging time across the globe. The album is raw and emotional, and I formed a deep bond with the songs. Once again there is turbulence, and this time the lyrics carry so much weight.
Beautiful
Beautiful is the perfect opening to the album. It celebrates a bond that outlasts distance, time and everything changing around you. It’s really about deep friendships, but I felt I had that bond with my ex-partner. That’s why I painted a lit match. The song is about someone who puts out the flames when your world is burning. Listening to it now, the person I trusted to do that is the one who struck the match.
Listen to the track: Beautiful by Duncan Laurence
Yet
Yet is such a lovely song. In some ways, I think it’s in the wrong spot on the track listing. It gives you a surge of hope before plunging you into the heartache that follows. When your heart is broken, you can’t always afford that kind of optimism straight away. Still, I love the story this song tells. It’s about the person you haven’t met yet. We live in a world where we are more digitally connected than ever, yet it feels harder than ever to truly meet someone.
But I’m a great believer that love comes when you least expect it. That has always been the case for me. I’ve never looked for it, it just arrives. So let’s see what happens. I love the optimism of what could be, even if right now those ideas feel like abstract-isms. You can appreciate the light at the end of the tunnel while knowing you’re still standing in the dark.
The song opens with finding someone in the glow of the city lights, so I painted streetlights shining in the dark. That glow is the hope, and the dark is where I’m standing right now.
Listen to the track: Yet by Duncan Laurence
Between Good and Goodbye
Between Good and Goodbye is an incredibly moving song. It’s about the grey area at the end of a relationship, when the good times have gone and the goodbye is coming, but nobody is saying so out loud. One person withdraws without explaining why, and the other is left guessing. The song is a plea for honesty: tell her what’s changed, and don’t leave her carrying the blame. I lived in that grey area for two years. What hurts most isn’t the ending itself. It’s never being given the truth.
For this study, I painted a figure looking into a broken mirror. The mirror is the relationship, which once reflected everything wonderful. Now it’s shattered. All the pieces are still there, but you can’t see yourself clearly in them, and you’re left with the questions nobody will answer.
Listen to the track: Between Good and Goodbye by Duncan Laurence
Loves You Like I Couldn’t Do
Loves You Like I Couldn’t Do is the breakup itself. The previous track is the grey area. This is the parting of ways. It’s about letting go without anger or blame, and accepting that you can’t give someone what they truly need. I’m trying to be as graceful as I can, despite the pain and my life being turned upside down.
For this study, I painted a portrait of him. The song looks back to the moment two people first met, and I still have so many vivid pictures in my mind from our early days. I wish I’d framed some of those moments. This painting is the closest I can get.
Listen to the track: Loves You Like I Couldn't Do by Duncan Laurence
Sleeping on the Phone
Sleeping on the Phone is about long distance, and staying close to someone even when you’re far apart. It takes me straight back to our early days, when I was in the UK and he was in Germany. The phone was how we stayed together, talking until falling asleep.
For this study, I painted a sleeping figure lit by the glow of a phone. It’s a bittersweet image for me. The phone brought us together, but it’s also part of what pulled us apart. Technology can be wonderful, but it can be just as destructive.
Listen to the track: Sleeping on the Phone by Duncan Laurence
Arcade
Arcade is the song that won Duncan Laurence Eurovision, and it’s easy to hear why. It’s about unrequited love, deep grief and the exhaustion of fighting for a love you can’t win.
For this study, I painted a candle that has just gone out, with the smoke still rising. It links back to the match in the first study. A match can bring light, warmth and love, but it can also burn and hurt. Here, the flame is gone and only the smoke is left. For a while you can still see it and smell it, but slowly and gently it drifts away. That’s what this song feels like to me: a love that is going, or already gone.
There’s always been something about a seaside arcade for me, the excitement, the colours and the sounds. But it’s all an illusion. You keep putting more in, hoping for a different outcome, and leave with nothing. That’s what heartbreak feels like, realising you spent all your hope on a game you could never win.
Listen to the track: Arcade by Duncan Laurence
Figure It Out
Figure It Out is about healing, growth and working through the difficult parts of a relationship. No relationship is perfect, and this song accepts that. It says that healing takes time, and that loving someone means you will get hurt sometimes. That idea is what I’m holding on to right now.
For this study, I painted the two of us under an umbrella, from early in our relationship. The umbrella stands for the storms that every couple faces. It can’t protect you from everything, but it helps you get through some of them together. The umbrella comes back later in the album, and I’ll return to it then.
Listen to the track: Figure It Out by Duncan Laurence
Last Night
Last Night is about vulnerability, and the long, painful nights when a relationship is falling apart. It captures that feeling of crying over and over, with nothing left to say, and being stuck trying to make sense of someone who has gone.
For this study, I painted a figure in bed, buried under the covers with their head hidden beneath their arm. You can barely see them, and that’s the point. The marks are loose and quick, and I think they say more about that kind of night than words can.
This is one of my favourite pieces in the series. Partly because it’s exactly how I feel, but also because of the way the ink flowed. I usually work in a lot of detail, and I’m trying to move away from that. This one shows me what can happen when I let go. Maybe that’s the lesson for those dark nights too. When the despair creeps in, letting go a little might be what helps.
Listen to the track: Last Night by Duncan Laurence
Someone Else
Someone Else is about the loneliness after a breakup. During the day you keep busy, surrounded by strangers in crowded streets and restaurants. But in the quiet of the night, the anxious thoughts creep in, and you can’t stop wondering whether they’ve moved on with someone new. In my case, I already know the answer. That doesn’t stop the questions, though, like what do they have that I don’t?
For this study, I painted a figure lying on a bed with a phone in their hands. Are they distracting themselves, or checking up on their ex? You can read it however you like. Like Last Night, it’s very loose, and I love the darkness of the figure.
These two songs and paintings belong together, and both are set in bed. A bed is meant to be a place of comfort, rest and intimacy. But it’s also where the distractions stop, and that’s when the darkest moments can creep in.
Listen to the track: Someone Else by Duncan Laurence
Love Don’t Hate It
Love Don’t Hate It is about identity, loving who you love, and standing against hate. It also captures that feeling of falling for someone so completely that it fills every thought, and of a love that feels so right, even if others might say it’s wrong.
For this study, I painted the two of us, based on one of the first photos he posted on Instagram. He’s leaning into me, with his nose pressed against my cheek. I wrote his caption on the painting: First pic together – changed my life completely! It’s far from perfect. The perspective is off and the ink has blurred in places. But this one was never about getting it right. It was about the feeling.
Listen to the track: Love Don't Hate It by Duncan Laurence
Umbrella
Umbrella is such a moving song. It’s about the end of a relationship, and slowly letting go of the grey skies and heartbreak left behind. Earlier, in Figure It Out, the umbrella was protection from the storm. Here, Duncan sings about finally putting it away, because the storm is passing and it’s time to move forward. I’m not there yet, but I can see it.
For this study, I painted a candle inside a window covered in raindrops, with its glow reflected in the glass. You can’t see the rain itself. Maybe it has stopped, and this is just the aftermath. Outside it’s still cold, wet and grey, and the future feels scary and unknown. But the candle is lit. In Arcade, the flame had gone out. Here it’s burning again, a small light and a little warmth, despite everything.
Listen to the track: Umbrella by Duncan Laurence
Small Town Boy
Duncan Laurence won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2019. He was mentored by Ilse DeLange of The Common Linnets. The Common Linnets are one of my firm Eurovision favourites. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to see them live, and I would love more music from them.
I know Eurovision is often looked down on, and you could even say it’s a bit Marmite, but personally I really love it. Eurovision week celebrates European cultures, differences, unity, art and love. I appreciate there are some questionable entries, but that’s part of the fun and charm. I’ve found some really great music through Eurovision. It acts as a platform for artists to be discovered, now on a global scale.
Sadly, this year I made the hard choice not to watch. I won’t go into the politics, but I felt I couldn’t take part, and I know millions of people felt the same. I still listened to the songs and discovered new artists. But not watching felt like a kind of mourning, and it still does. It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to enjoy it next year either, and that is a great sadness for me. It sums up 2026. Recently, I’ve been saying each year will go down as a bad year, but this one really will!
The deluxe edition
I painted the songs I wanted to paint, and there are some I didn’t. The whole album is personal to me, of course, and every song touches the relationship somehow. But two of the deluxe songs feel different. They aren’t really about us. They’re about me.
Stars is such a strong song, and I’ve always loved it. Duncan wrote it about leaving the Netherlands for America to chase his career. That part isn’t my story. But the opening asks a question I’m living with right now: if this is home, what do I call the place I came from?
I’ve lived in Germany since 2020, and I don’t see the UK as my home country any more. I’ve started calling it my place of origin, but even that doesn’t feel like the right term. The song also talks about missing the coast, and how the ones where you live now just aren’t the same. Those few lines are so deep and meaningful to me.
It’s even harder because there was a plan to buy a house together here and build something. That’s never happened, and it won’t now. I haven’t really settled. But this is my home. So what do I call where I came from?
Sad Old Me is an amazing song. I’ve adored it for a very long time, but right now I think this song is me.
It’s a song about emotional exhaustion and numbness, and how tiring it is to hide deep sadness behind a smile. It opens in a grey world with no colour, which captures how grief strips the vibrancy out of life.
Then comes the wish to be covered in paint, in colours that could make you feel alive again and laugh like a child. To me that’s a metaphor for healing, for getting back to happiness without the sorrow. As someone who paints, that means so much. It’s why this post is named after it.
The outro is the part that hits hardest. It’s about knowing how to put on a show, while being far sadder than anyone realises. That’s high-functioning sadness. Acting fine for the outside world while struggling inside. That’s my life right now, and sadly it has been in the past too. Life really isn’t easy or fair. I can’t go to work every day and be miserable. My students won’t learn if I’m down, so I put on a show. That’s why this song feels so relevant to me right now.
The deluxe edition closes on I Got You. It’s a song about unconditional love and support, about someone always being there.
I’m quite independent, and I’ve never expected anyone to drop everything for me. Heartbreak isn’t unique. Plenty of people go through it, and it’s a process you just have to get through. But whatever happens, music is there. You can pick it up whenever you need it, and it can match your mood or lift it. That’s what this album has been for me. Ending on this song feels really powerful.
Somewhere along the way, I realised this isn’t only a love letter to an album. It’s also a love letter to my relationship.
So this is for the album, and it's for us too.
All lyrics referenced are from Small Town Boy (Deluxe) by Duncan Laurence.
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