Everyone has a unique way of coping with divorce. For Gavin Hecker, songwriting, singing and making music videos proved to be very therapeutic. It also proved to be absolutely hilarious and heartwarming. Here is Hecker’s guest post, which is his story in coping with divorce.
Divorced And Singing About It by Gavin M. Hecker
We all have our own way of coping with difficult times in our life, and at the time of my divorce I was in dire need of refocusing my whirlwind of emotions into a productive form of release. Being a filmmaker/musician, I naturally took the path of creating music videos.
With my separation and subsequent divorce, I had experienced a gamut of emotional states, ranging from depression-induced insomnia to various forms of joyful reckless abandon. I wanted to capture those feelings, magnify them and put them on display. My idea was to create an alternate personality who, like myself, was destroyed then resurrected by his divorce. I was to become a caricature of myself, take my divorce, kick dirt in its face, and then embrace it for all its glory. Coincidentally, I had a friend who likewise had just been through a divorce, and was keen to join in on this escapade. We called ourselves the Divorced Boyz, and on a whim headed out to the beach at Asbury Park NJ with a camera.
The first video, “All The Single Ladies” is our take on the Beyoncé song. We excitedly chanted “All the single ladies” throughout the entire video, while pretending to be serious musicians. Its simplicity depicts the excitement of being eligible once again. Born of this first installment was the overwhelming satirical comic relief of the videos that followed.
With the next release, I recorded a song titled “Sex With Them Now”. This song explores in depth the essence of newly divorced freedom. The Boyz discover for the first time that they are free to do absolutely anything they want. There’s a line in this song that states “We’re gonna leave the toilet seat up and it never goes down”, and a scene that shows the Boyz simply throwing rocks in a pile with joy… cause that’s what men do. Of course they expect that all the women of the world will want to have sex with them because their sunglasses are so cool.
With the next song, I felt a need to explore the anger that not only myself, but also many divorced men and women feel toward their ex-spouse. “Count Me Out” is a dark narrative, and for the first time displays a more vulnerable divorced man. I wanted to show my own emotional weaknesses with this song, but also venture further and give a voice to men who might feel an even greater anger towards their ex-spouse than I actually did…It gets a bit nasty, as divorce might. However, I do lighten up the mood visually by incorporating the use of hula-hoops.
Here we are now five years later with the latest song “Still Shaving After All These Beers”, a parody of Paul Simon’s own post divorce track, “Still Crazy After All These Years”. This song is probably the closest to being truly autobiographical. It accounts for my post divorced self becoming a hermit of sorts recording music, drinking lots of beer, and taking to online dating in NYC.
Making these videos was a way to laugh at myself while telling a very personal story. It took the edge off of an otherwise abrasive emotional time period. We’re currently in search of a divorced drummer. (I have a feeling there’s no shortage of those out there).
To learn more about The Divorced Boyz, visit: https://www.facebook.com/Divorced-Boyz-521434614664907/
Check out their video “Still Shaving After All These Beers” on YouTube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUkCOjRZmsE#action=share
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