Singer Meg Myers' exasperation with her former record label birthed the song "Numb." She wrote me to say that the song "is about how I was feeling when my (former) record company was looking for something out of me that just didn't feel right for many reasons. I was frustrated and it came through in this song."
"You think you want the best for me," she sings. But nothing really matters / If you force it, it won't come / I guess I'm feeling numb."
"I discovered that this feeling was something I've experienced my whole life and decided to look within and confront it. I wanted the video to make the viewer experience this uncomfortable feeling."
It truly is an uncomfortable video to watch, with Meg Myers being "touched" in the workplace. Clara Aranovich directed the video. "In 'Numb,' things start 'innocently,'" she told me in an email. "And, by no mistake, in the workplace – a small touch here, a microaggression there – things eventually escalate to an absurd breaking point wherever Meg goes. This is very much how it feels, viscerally, to be female at times. I can speak for our whole team when I say the video came from an extremely raw, honest place of trying to explore very painful feelings of learned helplessness that a lot of aggressed-upon people feel. And, speaking frankly, as a director who happens to be female I often try to skew away from 'women's issues' pieces. But this was a narrative I couldn't afford to not tell."
This song comes from Take Me to the Disco, Meg Myer's second album and her first for 300 Entertainment. Produced by and co-written with Christian "Leggy" Langdon, it was a healing and cathartic experience for Meg Myers. She says,"it made me a better artist. And it's just the beginning. I have a lot of work to do. I have more to confront, and more to understand... more to say."
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