#Dido odds and ends full#

We were all part of this studio in London. It was basically hanging out with my brother, and my friends, and we all were doing our own thing. I was always writing, that never stopped, but in those moments of clarity you get - I remembered what music started me. STEREOGUM: Why did this feel like the right time to release Still On My Mind?ĭIDO: You know what it was? I was out of my record deal, and there was no expectation for me to make a record. I admire anybody that’s done it, but I’m always in awe of people. I’ll go on tour with a baby.” Then, I’m just like, “No, that’s just not gonna happen.” I think I was just living in a dream world. I was in that phase where you feel like you’ve been hit over the head, and it’s taking you into another dimension. Then, it came out when he was like a teeny baby. I was pregnant when I was singing Girl Who Got Away. Did you have your son prior to your previous album?ĭIDO: I did. I don’t really have anything interesting to say about it.” In a way, it was good, I just sort of took a step away, and then a few things happened, and a few things got me writing again, and suddenly seeing the world in that way again, where you could see the light, and the dark, and everything. When you have a kid, you just don’t feel that. Every song has a bit of light and a bit of dark in it, and that’s what inspires me to write is when I see the conflict in the situation. Partly because what I write about are small moments of conflict. I always write, but whether the songs see the light of day is a whole other thing. First, after I had, I definitely personally don’t think anything I wrote in the first year, and a bit after that was that great. Yes, it obviously puts everything into perspective. For whatever reason, your brain is just on fire when you have got the time, and that’s been a really lovely thing. You lose out on a bit of that lonely thinking time, which is a thing of the past. I mean, on a practical level, it makes you really amazingly productive with the time you do have. Is that along the lines of what you mean?ĭIDO: I think so. I know that when a lot of people start families, they talk about how things are kind of reoriented, or put into perspective in a way. So you end up … I don’t know, I just feel much more confidence this time around, if that makes sense. It’s sort of hard to explain, but I think it just sort of broadens your world. In a funny sort of way, it’s made me maybe more confident, or more easygoing about the music. Obviously, that changes everything, but I also think it sort of changes music in a way. STEREOGUM: How has life shifted for you since the last time you released music five or so years ago?ĭIDO: Well, the big change has obviously been family, and having my son. It also doesn’t feel like nearly 20 years since Dido first made a Stateside impression by letting Eminem sample her breakthrough track “Thank You” on his far darker, murderous superfan single, “Stan.” But Dido has only the fondest memories of appearing in the song’s music video as Stan’s (played by a wild-eyed Devon Sawa) pregnant girlfriend.īelow, Dido opens up about her latest music, how being a parent has shifted her perspective, what it was like to be on the set of the “Stan” music video, and what ultimately made her stop touring 15 years ago. “When someone actually counted it up, and they were like, ‘Do you know it’s been 15 years since you did a show?’ I was like, ‘What?’ It does not feel like that.” “It’s a bit scary, to be honest,” she admits.

#Dido odds and ends full#

And now, following up her 2013 collection Girl Who Got Away, Dido has released her fifth studio album, Still On My Mind, and is set to embark on a full world tour in May. Or if I’m not feeling the need to get up on stage, then I won’t get up on stage.”īut life didn’t stop, and Dido continued releasing music. “If I’m not feeling like I want to put the music out, then I won’t put the music out. “That’s sort of been the way I’ve been with everything in life,” the British singer says over the phone. So she did what a lot of musicians won’t - she stopped. The last time Dido booked a tour, it was 2003 and the soft-pop singer was riding high on the success of mid-’00s radio megahits “Thank You,” “Here With Me,” “White Flag,” and “Life For Rent.” But the singer/songwriter had been touring for nearly a decade, and the relentless on-the-road lifestyle was starting to wear her down. Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.