Paris Paloma Takes Personal Issue with “It’s Not That Deep” — and She’s Made an Album About It: Podcast

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Season 7 of Going There with Dr. Mike — it really is that deep. We’re joined on the latest episode by Paris Paloma, the British singer-songwriter behind the viral feminist anthem “Labor” and her newly released album The Fatal Flaw. The new record tackles a culture that has historically discouraged speaking openly about our feelings or taking accountability, and Paloma’s conversation with Dr. Mike traces that through her own early experiences with gendered violence and the shame they produced. She shares her candid reckoning with OCD and what it actually looks like from the inside, and you can hear it all above or wherever you get your podcasts.

Find Paris Paloma Tickets Here

The Fatal Flaw is, in many ways, Paloma’s visceral, personal reaction to the phrase “it’s not that deep.” “When I hear ‘it’s not that deep,’ I can just see in my mind’s eye people who have hurt me trying to shirk responsibility or people who would use their privilege to hurt other people and then try and gaslight and indicate that they actually have no privilege,” she says. Informed by bell hooks’ All About Love and The Will to Change, the album is her counterargument that everything is, in fact, that deep. Songs like “Good Boy,” “Beautiful Birds,” and “Stem the Flow” all circle the same thesis: the nonchalance our current culture prizes is a cover for something much more costly. “I’m not a violent person, but I make things with aggression,” Paloma says, “because it’s trying to reconcile all of this anger and this lovelessness with what we can do productively to thread love back into the conversation.”

Paloma has experienced this “cycle of violence” — one that occurs both internally and externally — back to personal traumas she processed not with rage, but self-blame: “If it’s your fault, that’s actually quite a comforting outcome because it means that it’s within your power to have changed.” Years of what she describes as “confessional OCD” compounded those feelings, as she experienced “the most isolating, self-punishing, weirdly biblical” need externalize intrusive thoughts to others in search of reassurance that she wasn’t a monster. “Because your mind can go to such dark places, you think you’re a monster,” she explains, “but the nature of it is that you only think about the things you would find most horrifying — which in itself proves that it’s not you.” She credits EMDR therapy and songs like Florence Welch’s “Free” and friend Sophie May’s “Tiny Dictator” as lifelines on that journey, and is clear-eyed about where she still is: “Spoiler alert: Recovery isn’t linear.”

Listen to Paris Paloma’s full conversation on Going There with Dr. Mike above or wherever you get your podcasts. Season 7 continues with future episodes featuring The Warning, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Marino, Matt Hansen, and more — so be sure to like, review, and subscribe to stay caught up and support our show. It really does help these conversations reach others who could benefit from hearing them.

Paris Paloma is currently on her “The Fatal Flaw Tour,” and you can find tickets here. Get The Fatal Flaw on CD or vinyl here.

Coming from the Consequence Podcast Network, Season 7 of Going There is presented by Johnson & Johnson, who believes that health is everything. Their strength in healthcare innovation empowers them to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through their expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, they are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at www.jnj.com, and @JanssenUS and @JNJInnovMed on X.