Preloved’s coming-of-age odyssey

Back then, Watson was two years into the creation of their debut indietronica album, Willow, but only a few of those songs would make the final cut. One in particular was about their childhood dog, Cassie.They loved Cass with the kind of unwavering love that can only be understood by someone who owns a pet. However, the crushing reality you face as an owner is you never know when you and your dog will go on your last walk. You don’t know when will be the last time you watch them excitedly run around in the garden. It's knowing that one day you will no longer wake up to the out-of-tune melody of their barking. Watson had written a song in preparation for that harrowing day, but those final moments came all too quickly. Unexpectedly, on that ordinary Monday in November, Cass had to be put down. The untimely death would come to represent the album Watson had been creating. “Cass is definitely a key centrepiece of the album. He represents my childhood and growth, and that just turned into growing into an adult,” Watson tells me. “When he passed, it was like, okay, this really makes sense now. It puts the songs into perspective even more after the grief.”It was only a matter of time unt...