Creating magic and mayhem

Singer-songwriter BE tells Abigail Whyte about her new single ‘Swim Through’, a song dedicated to women of the water showcasing unity, strength and overcoming adversity

‘Swim Through’ came into fruition about two years ago, on a very cold November morning. My friend, who’s also a musician, suggested we go for a swim at Hampstead Ponds. I feel like I’ve grown up seeing women swimming in these Ponds my whole life.

That day I was looking around and thinking it was a beautiful representation of everything that it means to be a woman. Together we’re always going through something in a cycle – loss, marriage, motherhood, sisterhood – and for us all to enter the water together felt like a very communal thing. So the song was born there, in that moment. We got the ukulele out and just started writing it.

The line ‘swim through’ stemmed from swimming through the seasons and all the weathers, then it progressed into a metaphor for swimming through your pain and other experiences.

The music video was born from literally lying down and visualizing the whole thing in my head. A lot of it stemmed from thinking ‘How best can I represent what swimming means to me and the people I’ve talked to about it?’ I realised it wasn’t just about the Ponds and swimming through grief, it was also about the joy, the community and the sisterhood. It’s about the shared madness of going in the water in sub-zero temperatures and the tea and cake afterwards. It’s so much more than just one thing. So I invited the director of photography round and I acted out every single movement of the video to her, just as it was in my head.

A big element of it was getting paralympians Brock Whiston and Tully Kearney involved. I’ve been following their stories for a few years and felt so inspired by them. When it all finally came together, it was magic and mayhem all at the same time, which is what I think swimming is.

I’ve been a water baby all my life. My mum used to splash water over our heads when we were in the bath, to help us feel comfortable with being in the water. She signed us up for swimming lessons really early, bless her. Swimming in cold water makes me feel like me again. I even love swimming in the rain; I yearn for a rainy swim.

When I’m struggling, for whatever reason, I take to the water a lot more than I do if I’m on a roll. We all go through cycles, just like the seasons. Every time I come round in that mental cycle of feeling a bit lethargic and like something’s stuck, I go to the water because you move through it, and the only way out of something is to move through it. I had a really tricky mental health period when I was 20 – I dropped out of uni during Covid. It was a complete shit show. Getting back into the water; moving and exercising and being in nature definitely saved me, big time.

‘Swim Through’ is available to download now. Watch the music video: