Dear potential record producer,

Firstly, don’t read this. Actually, do read it, but wait until I’m out of the room and don’t say anything until you’ve finished. And if you aren’t interested then if you could just regretfully mumble something about having too much on right now that would be great.

I’m Rosalie. I’m quite frankly a hot mess but I have written a multitude of songs about said condition and some of them appear to be things people want to listen to. I’m too anxious to play any gigs at this exact moment so I don’t have a following, as such, but I used to almost have one, back in the day when I was in bands and my hot messiness was compensated for by others. Someone in a pub once said, ‘You’re that girl from that band, aren’t you?’ and I was. I was that girl.

When you listen to the demos I’m sending you please bear in mind that I recorded most of them with little to no knowledge, confidence or experience. Obviously it’s not very cool to say your dad helped you… so, not that… but, well, let’s say, ‘a senior musician’ (John Greene) did support/berate me for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time too quickly, which will have exhausted his patience, though he is kind enough not to tell me that too often. So anything that sounds good is probably his doing, or things I learnt from SheProducer, some brilliant women supporting other women to produce their own music.

Ultimately, I have concluded that I am not (yet) ready to be a producer. I am a singer and a songwriter and a pianist and possibly a rhythm guitarist on a good day. But I don’t know what the drums do or what different guitar effects are or how to get that annoying frequency out of my voice that was described by one friendly sound engineer as ‘that of a baby crying’. And I am lost in a maelstrom of confusion over what sound I’m going for. And that’s where you come in.

I should mention that I don’t, exactly, have all the money I need to do this. But what is money, really, but a social construct? We can get past that, can’t we? I’m sure what’ll I bring to the table is worth more than mere financial gain. And in return, this is all you need to do:

• Communicate with me entirely by email. I’m autistic and socially awkward and the phone scares me. Video calls even more so. I don’t particularly want to meet you face to face unless it is absolutely imperative and if we do meet I may have to be sedated beforehand.
• Identify as any gender other than Man With Huge Ego (distinct from Man in a myriad important ways).
• Possess no physical or romantic attraction towards me. And vice versa. Best to get that sorted up-front.
• Confirm regularly that you aren’t annoyed with me/haven’t changed your mind about the whole thing/are enjoying the process/aren’t a con artist.
• Be prepared that if you don’t tell me you love everything I’m doing I may disappear into a hole/duvet for 48 hours.
• Never lie if you don’t love everything I’m doing because I actually do genuinely want to accept and learn from criticism, I just need a bit of careful handling (see section on hot mess, above).
• Understand my social/TV references and respond appropriately to them, even the ones that are a little dated (Nigel Mansell, Bergerac, Buffy TVS, Hercules Poirot, Jean Luc Picard, 1970s public safety videos).
• Generally be a fan of indie/alternative/80s new wave but secretly hold a fondness for folk, Deacon Blue and catchy pop.
• Know who Boygenius are and why they are my future life-partners/best friends.
• Honour and patiently reflect upon my responses to your initial mixes such as, ‘Great but it needs to be more like The Bangles reciting Sylvia Plath in a damp cave,’ or ‘There’s a noise in the middle a bit like a broken kettle that I don’t love,’ or, ‘This is never going to work; I am simply a worm’.
• Have a desire to create beautiful, heart-breaking and occasionally funny music which defies any firm classification of genre and will appeal to at least six people and allow me to be a real musician again.

If you think this is you, please send an SAE to PO BOX 666 and I’ll stalkerishly Google you and then tentatively respond and stay up all night watching my phone for your reply.

*for Daniel Knowles who is meeting the above criteria most excellently without the benefit of foresight.