Q&A | Matthew Mole talks about his latest album ‘Wake Up, It’s Morning’

“It’s about trusting the process.”

Ten years after his 2013 debut, The Home We Built, Matthew Mole’s fourth album, Wake up, It’s Morning, grapples with how many things have changed in his life and in the spectrum of human emotion, but how more have remained the same.  

An overriding theme of Wake up, It’s Morning is that everything is going to be OK. The album title represents a reminder of the “grace and compassion arriving with each new day”, and how Mole’s belief in that ethos inspired it. A constant feeling of hope and companionship is dotted throughout.

Here he takes us through the album, track by track. 

I’m With You 

“The message in the song is that everything will be fine and you’re not alone. We [were all] going through this confusingly isolated time together [during the pandemic] so [it was] important to connect. It was fascinating to get so many messages from people online telling me how the song helped them or how they related to it. I’m so grateful for that. I collaborated remotely with Brendyn Rossouw on this track. His brain is amazing. To finish it, I found this cool Airbnb in Cape Town on the mountain, a log cabin, where I recorded the song in a sort of DIY studio. That was fun.” 

Always by My Side 

“I wrote this with songwriter Ross Hamilton. Co-writing was a cool new experience for me. We spent two days in London. Normally, I go into a co-writing session with voice memos and ideas in case I’m stuck, but in this situation we spoke about the music we liked. He came up with a few electronic chord progressions and hip-hop drum grooves. With the ukulele, which is very much a Matthew Mole thing, it became this mini song structure after two hours of messing around with chords and singing weird melodies. When we looked at the sound, before there were lyrics, we brainstormed around what we were trying to say with the song. It sounded cheeky, but parts of it sounded dark, others happy. The major theme was the idea of a war raging in one’s own mind, overthinking, and we can’t run from our problems.”

Wake Up  

“I took the line ‘Wake up, it’s morning’ for the album title and wrote this in an Airbnb in London with a guitar, phone and laptop. There was no real percussion, like with my shakers and tambourines in a home studio. Nothing can replicate a real tambourine and that’s something I love about the realness of moving air with instruments. It came together quickly. It’s all about mental spiralling and how you can get yourself out of a doomed situation. The message is to get away from self-pity and take action because feeling sorry for yourself will get you nowhere.” 

Enough  

“I think this is my favourite tune from the album. It’s the first emotive, cinematic track. The bridge goes into this slow build and then explodes into an array of sounds I threw together, which represent the unlocking of that feeling that you’re enough and always will be. There’s a lot going on, from bird sounds to a range of synthesisers. It feels dreamy and airy with an unexpected explosion. ‘You’ll always be enough’ is the simple message.”  

Okay 

“This is an up-tempo song I wanted to be a bit of an outlier. It allows me to throw it into a live set and be like, ‘Maybe this is where I can have my pop-punk moment’. I loved that music growing up. I wanted the chorus to be singable. It’s the last song we put together for the album. I went to the Cradle of Humankind, a short drive from Joburg, and recorded some drums in a cabin with a friend, Josh Klynsmith, who co-produced the track. It was a cool process because we did it quickly without overthinking it. The setting also made it memorable. The drum parts form the true energy of the song.” 

Say You’ll be Mine

“I wrote this about my wife. We’ve been married eight years. It’s basically a summary of how we met and got to the point where we were engaged. In the song I discuss how I felt she was way too good for me, so there’s a lot of uncertainty in there. Almost a decade on from those feelings of uncertainty, the song is more about Jess and how amazing she is. It mentions Cape Town, Joburg and London because those places have all been central to our story. We met in Joburg, but she often came to hang out with me in Cape Town. We got engaged in London.”

Countryside 

“‘Countryside’ is also about my wife, but I suppose it could be relatable for anyone who feels like somebody else is their safe place. I recorded this in the countryside of Hereford with my friend Brendyn, who converted an old chapel into a studio. I kept thinking, ‘I love this and it’s beautiful and I’m so grateful to be here, but I’d also rather be with Jess even if it means I’m doing nothing, as long as I’m there with her’. That’s what the song is about. Even if you find yourself in awesome situations or places, can they be as special if you don’t get to experience them with your person?” 

Turtle Dove 

“While I was writing the song I was standing outside my house. One of those beautiful electrical storms had just passed. A huge flock of pigeons flew past, but one was a white dove. It was beautiful. A turtle dove sounds a lot more elegant than a pigeon, and ‘dove’ makes it easier to rhyme. The song is quite quirky and sounds different to everything else. The moment I had outside also left me with a lot of hope.” 

Never Felt Like This 

“This is super up-tempo, feel-good and a cheesy love song where I discuss the faults I have as a person. It came together quickly and was a lot of fun. All of us have faults, and this is about accepting them in ourselves and others, and it’s also about the realisation of gratefulness to have special people there for you who look past the faults. Unconditional love.” 

My Soul 

“I wrote the skeleton of this song in 2013. I put an old version of it up on the internet then but took it down. I always come back to it, play around with it and then step away again. It was supposed to be on my last album in 2019, but I still didn’t like it. Now I do. I’ve never done this with a song. The process around it was indecisive but I like that about it. It has got to a place where I’m happy with all the love and work invested by all these different Matthews over the years. It’s an uplifting track talking about those people who bring light into the world and give you life.”

See Me Again 

“This song has the sound I associate with my second album, Run. Bringing an element of an older album into a new one was a fun angle. It has that happy Matthew Mole sound which I always like to incorporate. It talks about the importance of not giving up on things that give you hope.” 

Good Things 

“I wrote this with Josh and trust his creative songwriting brains. It’s emotive and downtempo. He and I went to Cintsa, a nice, quiet beach resort in the off-season. It was a chilled, fun time and pretty much my first experience with co-writing almost two years ago. We wrote all the music together and I took it home to fine-tune the lyrics by myself and work out what I was trying to say. It’s about trusting the process and reminding yourself that good things come to those who wait.” 

Goodbye  

“I like the idea of the last track being called ‘Goodbye’. I don’t know how important it is to most listeners because of the shuffle function but I thought about that when putting the running order together. It’s also a way of saying goodbye to all the struggles faced and discussed in the album. It’s like a victory song. It’s ushering in a new era, a new moment, and walking away from another.”