Steve Dawson's Music Makers & Soul Shakers Podcast

I was honored to be featured on Steve Dawson's "Music Makers and Soul Shakers" Podcast recently. From the website: Steve Dawson, a guitarist/producer from Canada, now living in Nashville, has launched a new podcast entitled “Music Makers and Soul Shakers”. The 5th episode, featuring Mary Gauthier, is now up for free download from iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts from. The show is a longform interview about Mary’s music, history and songwriting process. There’s also a little jam at the end with Steve and Mary playing her song “Last of the Hobo Kings”. Subscribe to the podcast for weekly episodes featuring artists, musicians, producers and more from all over the Americana music spectrum!

In Episode 5, songwriter Mary Gauthier drops by The Henhouse in Nashville for a wide-ranging conversation about her unorthodox path in the music business that didn't start until she was 40! She has had songs on Grammy winning albums, and had them covered by artists as diverse as Jimmy Buffet and Bettye LaVette. Mary has recorded a number of exceptional albums, working with some heavy-hitters in the production world, such as Joe Henry and Gurf Morlix. Her latest album, Trouble and Love is some of her finest work to date. Mary and Steve discuss her songwriting process, how she approaches making records, some of her studio experiences, her new book and some of the hurdles she has overcome to go from being a successful chef and restaurant owner to one of the most respected songwriters of her generation. At the end of the interview, Mary and Steve pick up the guitars and perform her song "Last Of The Hobo Kings".

Click HERE to Listen!

Radio Heartland Studio: 4/16/Songs have always been a way for me to create a connection with people, and I think connections are how we heal.

Click HERE to Listen to my April Radio Heartland Studios Interview and Performance with Mike Pengra on Minnesota's Public Radio. From the Minneapolis Public Radio Website: "Songs have always been a way for me to create a connection with people, and I think connections are how we heal." – Mary Gauthier

“Songs have always been a way for me to create a connection with people, and I think connections are how we heal.”

— Mary Gauthier

I checked off another "Radio Heartland Bucket List Interview" this week when singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier stopped in the studio. Mary's songwriting is legendary amongst her fans and peers for its honesty and grit. Her life story is one filled with chapters about love, loss and courage. She only started songwriting in her mid-30s and has had her songs covered by some of the best folk and country musicians in the industry.

Mary was abandoned at birth and raised in an unhappy home, to say the least. She ran away as a teenager and struggled with her sexual identity and with chemical abuse. She became a gourmet chef after getting a handle on her addiction and finally, she became a songwriter at the age of 35. She writes songs that come from her heart and touch the lives of her listeners.

Her latest album is Trouble and Love from 2014. The record is a journey starting at the end of a relationship and winding its way through the darkness till there's light at the end of the tunnel.

I was lucky enough to sit eight feet in front of Mary when she played … and when she finished, there wasn't a dry eye in the room.

Songs Performed

"Last of the Hobo Kings" "Another Train" "Mercy Now" Song 1 is from Mary Gauthier's 2007 album, Between Daylight and Dark; song 2 is from Gauthier's 2014 album, Trouble and Love; and song 3 appears on Gauthier's 2005 release,Mercy Now.

Hosted and produced by Mike Pengra Engineered by Michael Osborne Photos by Nate Ryan

Finding Emotional Truth: April 2016

Happy Spring!

I’m in the trenches with my book, arm wrestling big ideas, trying to makes sense of them on paper. The chapter I’m working on now deals with the concept of emotional truth, or story truth, as opposed to literal truth. It’s a doozy. Here’s some of what I’ve worked out:

“Extracting the true from the false is at the core of songwriting, and even when the writer works through fantasy and fiction, (and most of us do) emotional truth is the right basis of it. It’s paradoxical, but oftentimes the best way to demonstrate emotional truth is through made up tales. We use melody and metaphor to point to experiences that there are no words for.

Everyone knows fiction is fabrication. But everyone also knows that fiction and falsehood aren’t the same things. Enduring works of literature generate very real emotional experiences that transcend the place and time in which they were written. Ditto songs. Resonance is a sympathetic response, a heartfelt connection, and like stories, songs succeed when we believe them. This heartfelt connection has little to do with facts. When we love a song, we could care less if anything in it ever actually happened. The connection is not based in reason. It’s based in emotion.”

Here's an example of a song I made up, where none of the events happened, but the story is true: Our Lady of the Shooting Stars.

As always, thank you for being a part of my journey. This month I’m headed to Minnesota solo, and then Texas with Eliza Gilkyson and Gretchen Peters as part of the Three Women and the Truth Tour. I will be in New York the last weekend of Aprilwith Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk to run a trauma healing workshop we’ve named "Trauma: Embodiment, Synchrony and Finding Your Voice" at The Garrison Institute.

I hope to see you down the road! Visit www.marygauthier.com/tour for more details on my upcoming shows. Thank you!

Inspiration In The Rockies: March 2016

Hello Again!

I am on my way back to the Canadian Rockies this week! I am looking forward to performing shows in Alberta this month, including three dates with Sam Baker and one with Eliza Gilkyson.

I have drawn inspiration from this beautiful landscape and creative environment for my book, and am excited about the potential for a new project affiliated with The Banff Centre and friends Sam Baker, Jim White and Minton Sparks.

As I continue to teach songwriting in Banff and collaborate with other great writers in this tremendous setting, I am able to finally put to words some of my most important realizations about the mystery of writing songs.  As a result, my book is starting to take shape now, and is starting to look more like a manuscript than a pile of thoughts that don't connect. Writing a book still feels like writing the longest song ever attempted, but my brain thinks in song, and I'm going with the flow!

Thanks again for following along on my journey and for all of your support and feedback as I explore this new territory. Below is an excerpt from the latest draft of my book. In the meantime, I hope to see you in Alberta this month or down the road this spring and summer!

~~~~~ "Songwriting is an art unto itself, and vision is what’s most important. A basic understanding of craft is necessary, but the art of songwriting is not about mechanics. The art is not about singing, guitar playing, or mastery of any instrument. It’s not about performance, show business, or even entertainment. It’s not about reading or writing music. The art of song is about combining vision, ideas and truth in an effort towards wholeness.

Basic knowledge of music and melody is helpful, but songwriting doesn’t require a music education. Emotional literacy is what matters. There are generations of timeless songs “written” by illiterate songwriters, and brilliant songwriters who don’t play any instruments at all. Irving Berlin, the composer of countless beloved standards couldn't read or write music. He played almost entirely in the key of F-sharp, allowing him to stay on the black keys as much as possible.

At the end of the day, songwriting is conjury. The conjurer is often as mystified as anyone as to where our creations come from. We often can’t explain how we do what we do because we don’t fully understand it ourselves. But in the right mood, with the right frame of mind, there’s a feeling of being an antenna, receiving, then transmitting, receiving, then transmitting. Great songs are more than words and music. Welded together just right, they become emotional electricity.

Songs are music and words glued together with magic. Songwriters apply the glue."

Please visit my Tour Page for all of the details about my upcoming shows in Alberta!

Thank you! - Mary

Snowed In, Nashville Style: February 2016

Hello Friends & Hello February!

I hope you are all staying warm! The Nashville blizzard came at the perfect time for me. Being snowed in provided me an opportunity to focus deeply on rewriting a chapter in my book called The Power and the Glory.

I am closing in on this chapter, and would like to share an excerpt with you:

"I see songwriting as a kind of midwifery. Like children, songs show up knowing who they are. I make choices that influence them, but the songs arrive with personalities of their own. So, if songs are coming from somewhere else, my work is to be a receiver. With lightening rod in hand, I conduct electricity by collecting the flashes of ideas. As I work, I ride the edge between what I know, and what hasn’t happened yet. As I step over that line and create something from nothing, I get the sense that I am co-creating. I do not know what the electricity flowing through me will manifest, or what my efforts at conducting it will light up. Often, it is nothing at all! I am not in charge of the flow. I cannot switch it on or off. All I can do is show up, and direct my focused effort into it, and believe in the process.

Sometimes I sit at my writing desk for hours before I can access the state of mind where I am not “writing”, but instead, I am listening. There is a deep and profound mystery at the core of song creation, a sacred riddle. Each song makes requests of me, through my knowing, my gut, or solar plexus. My job is to remain authentic. It is the third chakra that helps me get rid of my lies. When I write untruths into a song and stray from the path of authenticity, my gut feels it. It senses the falseness and sends me a message to work harder. My job as a songwriter then, is to rid my song of my dishonesty. This is neither simple nor easy - the process is almost always one of discovery. I must work to see what I have not yet seen. Every song is a new beginning, a new life entering the world."

My experience with book writing is much like songwriting. I seem to be following the trail of something that wants to exist in a certain form, and my job is to receive it. As I write a chapter, the chapter becomes ripe and heavy and splits into the next chapter, like fruit falling off a tree. The process is rather amazing!

As always, thank you for being a part of my journey.
~ Mary Gauthier

Songwriting As A Healing Art: January 2016

Happy New Year, and Hello Sweet 2016!

A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who came out to one of my live shows in 2015, and to all who have supported my efforts along the way! I am grateful for you.

As we turn the corner into 2016, I am already busy working on my book, The Art of the Song. I’m smoothing out sentences, shaping them into paragraphs, and stacking paragraphs into chapters.

It’s starting to feel like I am writing the longest song EVER. Having never written a book, I’m learning as I go. I’m digging down deep into the songwriting process, describing writing as a healing art form and telling stories along the way.

Here are a few excerpts from my initial drafts of the book:

Good songwriting is about telling the truth in an interesting way. It springs from love, hope, and oftentimes desperation. It is about discovery.

Songwriting is an art and a craft, but foremost an art, and artists should not be neutral. An artist should be committed to humanity and emotional honesty, always aiming for truth in their work. A songwriter’s relationship with both the song and the listener is based on trust, and that trust is a sacred bond. Songs are more than just sweet undulations or sale-able entertainment products - they are powerful medicines that serve to connect us to ourselves, to each other, and to something bigger.

Songwriting is one of the healing arts. Songs affect attitude, emotional state, outlook, and way of being. They are vibrations from a higher world, which we humans have been given the power to invoke.

Thank you for being a part of my journey! I will keep you posted as my book unfolds. May this new year be full of truth, discovery, healing and many opportunities to share your authentic voice.

In the meantime, I hope to see you out on the road in 2016!

Sitting in Elvis Presley’s 1963 Rolls Royce

Veteran Jamie Trent and I, in the back of Elvis’ 1963 Rolls Royce! Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki filmed us in the back seat, riding around playing "Bullet Holes," the song we wrote together.

Eugene is making a movie about Elvis and America. We rode around in the old girl for hours being interviewed and playing music!

Working For The Greater Good = Joy

Pictured L to R: Iraq War Combat Veteran Rob Spohr, Iraq War Combat Veteran Josh Geartz, Veteran Airlift Command Volunteer Pilot Joe Bartosiak, SW:S Songwriter Mary Gauthier, SW:S Songwriter James House, Violin Player Kate Lee.

I was honored to perform on the Grand Ole Opry at The Ryman Saturday, November 28th - the night of the Opry's 90th Birthday.

I brought some friends with me, including Combat Veteran Josh Geartz, who fought in The Iraq War and co-wrote "Still On The Ride" with me, and Singer-Songwriter James House, both of whom I met through Songwriting With Soldiers (SW:S).

The fiddle player Kate Lee, the Opry Band and the Opry Singers also joined us onstage. It quickly became a night for the ages.

As I sang the first lines of "Still On The Ride" the room became electrically charged. I could feel people emotionally reacting to the words.

Looking back now, who the hell knows Where the soul of a dead soldier goes

Josh sat stage right and began to play harmonica, and as James and Kate and I sang the words of the first chorus, I felt an even deeper energetic tightening.

I shouldn't be here, you shouldn't be gone But it's not up to me who dies and who carries on I sit in my room, and I close my eyes Me and my guardian angel are still on the ride

The sold out Ryman had converged. Audience, musicians, employees and ushers had become one, mesmerized by the power of Josh's story. I glanced down at the front row, and men were fighting back tears.

James and Kate and I finished singing the second chorus and then KABOOM, the drums and bass came crashing in loud for the solo, raising the hair on the back of my neck and nearly lifting the ceiling off the Ryman.

It was glorious music, expressing the will to live, the urgency of our need to believe, uplifting, defiant, hopeful in the face of trauma and loss.

I looked over at Josh, wireless mic in his hands, harmonica between his lips, and he looked over and smiled at me under his hat. It was a moment I will never forget.

As the last note of the song rang out, the audience jumped to their feet, many with tears on their cheeks. They clapped and cheered, the house lights came on and off, and the clapping and cheering got louder. The band looked at Josh, put their instruments down, stood up and started clapping. I did the same.

It was a classic Opry moment, a sustained standing ovation, a deep acknowledgement of a single Veteran's service, a thank you to all Veterans who serve, and a 90th Birthday Celebration of the greatest long-running musical institution America has ever known.

I snuck out to the gift shop after the first show to try and buy a show poster for Josh, and was immediately swarmed by people who'd seen the performance, many of them Vietnam Veterans. They wanted to thank Josh, thank the Opry, thank Songwriting With Soldiers, and hug me.

I mumbled a few words about gift shop and a poster and suddenly a dozen people were handing me their newly purchased show posters, for me to give to Josh. I accepted one, thanked the person who gave it to me, took some pictures with folks, and made my way backstage to prepare for the second show.

It happened again at the second show - ovation, tears and emotional connection! What a night!

A little taste of heaven on earth: a sense of purpose bigger than us all. Josh kept saying how much he felt like his story could help other Veterans and how much he felt a part of something bigger than himself. That's how we all felt.

Teamwork made this event possible. Songwriting With Soldiers brought us together. Veterans Airlift Command provided free air transportation, flying Josh and fellow SW:S Combat Veteran Rob Spohr to Nashville from New York pro bono, and the Opry opened their arms and graciously worked with us to make the night possible.

In a time when almost all the news on TV is bad, when we are on the verge of new wars, new terror attacks and new threats of all kinds of violence, I am grateful for the power of song to open hearts, and for the power of love to bring us together.

In the end, it's simple really. Working with others for the greater good = Joy.

Click HERE to listen to "Still On The Ride," co-written by Mary Gauthier and Josh Geartz.

On The Air This Week: eTown Podcast, 12/2-12/8

Be sure to visit www.etown.org beginning December 2nd to watch Mary Gauthier's "On The Air This Week" podcast, taped September 27th in front of a live audience in Boulder, Colorado. The podcast will stream on the eTown website until December 8th, will be available on iTunes and will air on over 300 stations.

All photos by Kirsten Cohen.

Learning How To Listen: November 2015

Last week I spent a morning with Josh Gertz and his service dog Coda at the Songwriting With Soldiers Retreat in Rennselaerville, NY. We wrote a song called “Still On The Ride,” which portrays Joshua’s story of loss, perseverance, courage and survival, and his belief in a guardian angel that saved his life. Over the weekend, I also wrote a song with Kevin Reeder and Rudyard Edik, making for a total of three new songs in a day and a half. A privilege, and thrill, and a sacred trust. A huge thank you to the vets for sharing your stories with us. Click HERE to listen to "Still On The Ride."

The soldier’s songs have become a part of me. As I sing them from town to town, each of them resonates a powerful truth: Songs change lives.

An emotionally honest song has the power to wormhole its way deep into the heart. And then, like water on a seed, the heart changes the mind. Souls are reshaped, enlarged, by a simple song. Something new is born. Connections are made. Bridges are built.

At first glance the work seems simple: sit with a veteran, ask them about themselves, and write a song based on what they say. Use their words as the foundation. Listen for a title, encourage them to keep talking until I can discern the emotional bottom line of their story, play a couple of chords that sound like that emotion, come up with verses and a chorus, and then make it rhyme.

But after doing that, something complex happens, and I don’t fully understand it. Something extraordinary enters the room, something bigger than both of us. The song is born in that hallowed place.

It happens fast, and it happens almost in a trance. I barely remember writing these songs. Writing with a veteran is like walking an emotional labyrinth. An exchange takes place in the entanglement. There is soul-to-soul contact.

As I sit and listen to the stories they carry, my chest swells with love. Bearing witness to someone’s story is profound. Truly listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. Listening compels the real story to come out. There’s nothing else quite like this humbling process. Maybe this is why I love this work so much, because it is teaching me how to truly listen.

A New Book Deal! October 2015

Friends, I am excited to announce that I have signed a book deal with Yale University Press! Steve Wasserman, the Editor of Yale Press, approached me and asked if I would write for them. My answer was a shrill, high-pitched, girly-sounding YES!

We signed the deal last week.

My book will be about songwriting and the creative process, and will take shape as I proceed. I have no master plan. When I write a song, I follow the clues in front of me, as they always take me somewhere.  I’m trusting the same process for book writing. As I head into the deep woods of something I always wanted to do but have never done, I’m doing my best to stay steady. I have a year to complete the project.  I will continue to play weekend shows, work on songs with Veterans through the wonderful Songwriting With Soldiers organization, and teach, but during the week I’ll be at my desk, book writing.

I’m a bit intimidated, a bit terrified, and truly thrilled about this new development in my world! I’ll keep y’all posted.

Folk Festivals & Friends: September 2015

September Greetings! In Denmark last week at the Tonder Festival, I had the privilege of swapping songs with Chris Smither, Butch Hancock, Hans Theessink, JT Van Zandt and Richard Dobson, and I felt right at home in a city I’d never been to before.

As a musician who travels solo most of the time, playing Summer Folk Festivals is a great opportunity to connect with my fellow travelers.

When the road has me worn down, when my body hurts and I can’t even remember what time zone I am in, seeing my musical friends renews me like nothing else.

This summer I played festivals in Norway, Canada, Denmark, and around the US. Performing on the big outdoor stages in front of large audiences is exciting and often amazing, and spending time with my community is food for my soul. I've had a wonderful summer.

The music community seemed so vast and overwhelming when I first got started on the road 15 years ago. I felt like a new kid at a new school, knowing no one, while all the other kids had known each other for years. Now, I’m a grateful member of worldwide tribe of creative artists and musicians.

Connection to community is important to me and becomes more so every year. I never expected that a community of artists would become my life when I became a performing songwriter, but musicians know each other, and form networks, and the networks form a global community. We really are citizens of the world. Swapping songs and stories with my friends has become one of my life’s greatest joys.

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY

I’m offering a songwriting workshop in Nashville on October 1, 2, and 3, if you’d like to come down and get your own full serving of what it feels like to be submerged in group of creative people. We form a tight bond, and the community lives on long after the workshop is over. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS ON SONGWRITING WORKSHOP

Also, I will be performing with friends at The Americana Festival in Nashville, Tennessee September 16-19th. If you’re in town, come on down to the Country Music Hall of Fame's Ford Theatre Saturday, September 19th at 11:30 am. I will be offering a Songwriter's Session where I will talk about songwriting and playing and will answer your questions. I have a couple of other events during the conference as well. CLICK HERE FOR AMERICANA SCHEDULE

I hope to see you soon! Thank you for being a part of my journey!

Life In The Balance: August 2015

“Well, you’re being very calm about it,” Michele my violin/viola player said, as we stood on stage at our sound check in Calgary, staring down at the empty spot in my guitar case, where my guitar should have been. I was speechless, thinking well, this is a first. I’ve flown my guitar case to Canada, but not my guitar. It was still sitting on the stand, in my music room in Nashville. It was such a huge oversight on my part that it was almost funny.

I’d been in Norway for 4 days before coming to Calgary, in 6 time zones in less than a month, 16 cities in the US and Canada prior to Norway, my knee was killing me from too much driving, and my brain was in a fog.

It took a while for my mistake to become real.

When I was able to speak, I said "Well, ok. Let's figure out what to do." I called the local music store. We headed there quickly before they closed and rented a guitar for my Canadian tour dates.

And I finally got it.  It’s time for me to take a deep breath and relax.

I love my work, and am looking forward to my remaining 2015 tour dates, but later this year I am going to sit back and enjoy some of the fruits of my labor. I plan on doing more yoga, cooking dinners, and savoring some slow days and calm nights, reconnecting with my community, and taking December off. I am working on a book, which I will focus on in early 2016.

Work-life balance is a challenge for most of us, especially when we love our jobs. My choices as to what to do with my time are many, and they are all good options. When almost all of my focus is on my work, even though my job is my passion and I love it, it creates shortages in other areas. My community matters to me, my friends matter to me, my home matters to me, my music matters to me, touring matters to me, teaching matters to me, and working with the veterans matters to me. What a life!

I am certain I am not the only person juggling these questions and hard choices. Forgetting my guitar presented me with an opportunity - to fine tune, to adjust, and to really think about work-life balance. This is a discussion that will most certainly continue, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. How do you keep your life in balance?

Magic at The Cloister of St. Giovanni: June 2015

Hello Again, and Welcome New Friends! “When I put my violin on my body, through it I feel all the stories, all the pains of the Italians, the Americans, the Gypsies, the Jews and many others, all the people that suffered in wars. The songs of the soldiers are a prayer for peace.”

Michele Gazich recently accompanied me on my two-week tour in Italy and Ireland, playing violin and viola on the songs I have written for soldiers as well as some of my recent songs from Trouble & Love. Michele’s viola and violin connected the stories of the soldiers I’ve co-written songs with to the stories of all the soldiers from all the wars – World War I, World War II, and all of the great conflicts throughout history – something I never could have imagined or planned.

During our show in Brescia, Michele’s hometown, we joyfully stood in front of a packed house of several hundred people that beautiful night in late May at The Cloister of St. Giovanni (built in 1505), with an overflow crowd listening outside in the garden.

The Cloister, still beautifully alive with fantastic acoustics and natural reverb (not bad for a 500 year old lady), was full of excitement, heart energy, and love. We played with our hands on fire, with the spirit moving through us, and another world almost within reach. I sang like I have never sung before, feeling each word deeply, then singing the essence of each word and listening as the natural room reverb held the notes longer than I ever could.

Michele’s viola emphasized phrases, added new layers of meaning to the language of the songs, and brought the audience to their feet with the emotion of his playing.

It was one of those nights I may have dared to imagine in my wildest dreams, years ago, when I allowed myself to be brave in my vision. Manifesting our wildest dreams is not about awards or honors, sales or numbers. Manifesting our dreams is about listening to our heart’s desires that necessarily involve love, community, and connection.

My heart’s desire is to connect people with my songs. On this night, the songs – especially the ones I wrote with the veterans - connected us and reminded us we are one.

We want to especially thank all the folks who came out to support us in Europe. Thank you for selling out our shows, and for experiencing this magic with us. We appreciate you so much.

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Learning to Tell the Truth

Happy Spring! I'm excited to be teaching new songwriting workshops - Italy in May, and Nashville in June!

I am often asked “Can songwriting really be taught? Isn’t songwriting just a natural-born gift or a talent?"  What I teach, and what I enjoy teaching, is that we writers are called to write primarily because we have something to say that matters.

As most of you know, I did not start writing songs until my early 30’s, though I was trying to write long before that. My early attempts failed for a variety of reasons (primarily my lack of sobriety), but also my lack of confidence.

I didn’t believe that what I had to say mattered. In retrospect, 10 albums and 20 years later, I think this is something most beginning songwriters struggle with.

I got sober in 1990. Soon after that I picked up a guitar and started trying to write songs about how I was feeling. I had time on my hands, PLENTY of time. I did not hang out at bars or parties anymore. I came home to an quiet, empty house every night after work, with nothing to do.

Turns out, this was a good thing. It gave me time to focus on the songs, and keep working on them, making them better and better.

I wrote and wrote and wrote, and started hanging out at the Boston and Cambridge open mics. I watched other beginners struggle on stage, and I watched what worked for them, and what didn’t. People always love great singers and a skilled guitarist is impressive, and those things got applause. But that’s not what I was interested in. Great songs were what I was looking for, and they are hard to find at an open mic.

I took some songwriting classes, but the teachers I found were not right for me and I didn’t learn much because they were teaching about writing hits, which I didn’t care about. I cared about the heart, not the chart. I still do.

So I became a better writer by writing, and playing, and writing, and playing, for years. And paying attention to what connected with people.

And always, connection happened with emotional honesty.

Here’s the answer to the question I posed at the beginning of this discussion: Writing can be taught, if it’s writing for and from the heart. Putting yourself on the line, and revealing what matters to you.

Talent cannot be taught, but courage can be taught.

When I write, and when I teach writing, I use the word courage and truth over and over and over again. These are two essential things that make for great writing.

Hemingway famously said he was trying to “Write one true sentence.” I try to get my students (and myself) to write one true line. Once you finally have that one true line, you can then grow a song out of it. If you do not have that, then you are building your house on sand. I often have to write for hours to get to that true line, but once I get there, I know a good song can grow out of it.

I teach my students to try and locate their own truth-o-meter…get in touch with the place in their gut where they know, and apply it to their songs, line by line.

It gets tricky because songwriting is not journalism. We’re not looking for objective truths in songs. We’re looking for emotional truths that resonate, and sometimes we must lie to get to them.

Picasso said that art is a lie that points to the truth, and if that were not tricky enough, I’d also add that in songwriting we should never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

I cannot teach a student what matters to them, where to find their inspiration, or what to write about. But I can teach a songwriter that their job is to make the listener feel something, and the way to do that is to reveal something that matters in a way that makes them, the songwriter, feel something.

In other words, be vulnerable.

The human heart is the same everywhere you go. People are people are people are people. Once we  truly get this, it becomes clear that to connect we must show listeners our heart, and in that process we writers will also show them theirs. This is teachable, if the student is willing to be brave enough to reveal what most people try to hide.

With our hands shaking and our voices cracking, in my class, we learn to tell the truth.

Collaboration & Chemistry

Hello Everyone, and Hello April! In March I played 16 shows in 15 towns on the East Coast with my friends Allison Moorer and David Wilcox. Every show was like sitting on the front porch, telling stories and swapping songs.

Also, a song I co-wrote with my friend Gretchen Peters called “How You Learn To Live Alone” was performed on the Nashville TV show March 25^th in front of millions of people by Jonathan Jackson.

March, for me, was about collaboration. To work with another, cooperating and enjoying the results together, is one of life’s most rewarding experiences. It brings to mind the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

I have travelled alone for most of my career. Out of financial necessity, and personal preference. It’s a suitable way to present my songs, and I’ve loved living the life of a solo troubadour. Driving from town to town with a guitar, a harmonica, bar stool, a bottle of water, and a spotlight. Selling CD’s from a little table after the show, meeting people, and talking to them as they walk up to the table. Wake up in a hotel, drive. Then do it again. It’s a good life, and I love it.

But to play in combination with others, swapping songs, stories, jokes, sharing the stage with peers, equals, and other writers has brought me to a new appreciation of the art of stage and song. There’s no boss in these situations, no one has the final say. We all have the final say.

Chemistry is important. This wouldn’t work with just anybody. Mutual respect is vital, as is trust. I’ve chosen the people I want to work with, and I’ve chosen well. The results have brought me great joy. We open the door for magic, for alchemy, for the mystical spark of the divine that makes the show bigger than the sum of the people present.

I am in the business of creating magic. We are looking for communion with the Gods, reaching for that lift-off place where we all ride the waves of music into another world and become one with the song. The ego is at rest. It is an event of the soul, and very difficult to create on stage with other songwriters. When the other performer is so very good that the entire room is silenced and amazed, the result is sheer joy.  As a listener I am in resonance with the singer next to me. Ah, such beauty, and so difficult to create and sustain.

I experienced this resonance with David and Allison night after night, and with Gretchen when we wrote "How You Learn To Live Alone." And when I watched Jonathan Jackson beautifully perform our song on the Nashville TV show, I thought "wow - the circle is complete."

With resonance, connection, and joyfulness these days, I am loving this journey!

Seeing Trauma In A New Light

In February I spent a week in sunny Big Sur, California working with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, the author of NY Times Bestseller, The Body Keeps The Score. Bessel is one of the nation's most experienced physicians in the field of healing emotional trauma. His book moved me deeply, and I jumped on the chance to work with him in a small group. The week I spent with him deepened my understanding of the brain and of myself, and gave me a language for things I never had words for before. Many of you know that I spent my first year in an orphanage, and when I was adopted, I struggled with attachment. Maintaining connection has always been hard work for me, and continues to be. Now I have a better understanding of why it's been hard. Trauma.

“The whole function of our brain is to be in sync with each other.” – The Body Keeps The Score, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk

Trauma, at its core, is about disconnection. It’s the breaking of human bonds - physical, emotional and psychological. Childhood trauma is especially damaging, and when we’re not able to form healthy bonds with our parents or caretakers at an early age we often seek out connection in self destructive ways.

The hurt I felt as a child followed me down the road into adulthood. I was seeking connection but I found addiction. I found more trauma. I didn’t know how to trust my own perceptions. I wasn’t safe. It was a vicious cycle.

"Traumatized people are drawn to traumatizing things. It’s where they feel alive. Adapting to trauma, we learn to not know what we know, feel what we feel."

Bingo. I knew this, but I guess I needed a world famous trauma doctor to validate it. For most of my life, I couldn’t know what I knew, see what I saw, or feel what I felt. In many ways, I was blind. I’ve written song after song about this, trying to make sense of it. Dr. van der Kolk taught me about connection, resonance, identification, and synchronization. He explained why I am my happiest when I am connected to people (it's what mammals are programmed to do), how trauma creates a disconnect, and what is currently known about how to heal this disconnection.

Bessel gave me a magnificent, clear understanding of trauma and its effects, free of blame or shame, free of psychobabble, or confusion. The driving force behind my songwriting, and my teaching is truth-telling, and my work as a songwriter has been a huge part of my own healing, that I might fully see what I see, know what I know and truly love who and what I love. Bessel said it probably saved my life. Looking back now, I think he is right.

If my words here are hitting home, get Bessel's book.

The Body Keeps The Score is destined to become a game changer - a book that will fundamentally change the way we look at the world. It's truly that good.

Rifles & Rosary Beads

Hello again! Most of you know I’ve had the great privilege of writing songs with soldiers through the incredible organization Songwriting With Soldiers (SW:S).

I want to share one of these new songs with you.

I was in a SW:S writing session a few weeks ago when Joe Costello, a young soldier, looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t know how to explain how I feel except to say my soul hurts.” Then he looked down, and there was a long silence.

I waited, I hesitated, I let the silence linger. I tried to take in the bigness of what he had just told me. After a few moments, I asked him how he deals with that feeling, how other soldiers deal with that.

He said everyone has their own way of dealing, but in Iraq there were a lot of white knuckles holding rifles tightly, and plenty of other fingers rolling rosary beads in circles, over and over again.

As he spoke, I heard the title “Rifles and Rosary Beads.” So I suggested we write a song with that title. We worked on it for about 2 hours, and I sang the title line and the chorus over and over, adding new words and adjusting words each time. I asked him to tell me when I got the words right, and when I got them wrong. As we worked, his detached posture changed, his demeanor shifted. He became engaged.

His head would nod when I got it right, I’d ask him more questions, he’d supply the answers and I’d work on making them rhyme, and sing them back to him. His head nodded faster as the song developed, his eyes lit up, and his lips (that had been firmly set in a straight line the entire weekend) began to ease into a small, shy smile around the corners of his mouth. When I missed what he was trying to say he’d correct me, and this would open him up to tell me new stories, new feelings. We found a flow and rode it. We reached a point where what he was saying was overwhelming to both of us, and I put down my guitar and broke down. I looked up and he was crying too.

As the emotion moved though us and we regained composure, I wrote down a summary of his words and sang them back to him, and we kept going.

His song had taken shape, and when we were done, I asked him to close his eyes, and I played the whole song to him, softly. Though the song was intense, and the story a difficult one, we both stood up and instinctively high fived after the last note rang out.

We knew we’d nailed it, and we did the touchdown dance together. It was a beautiful, joyful moment. The relief on his face at the end of the writing session was as if time had reversed itself inside his brain. His demeanor had softened. He looked younger and more alive. I asked him how his soul was feeling now.

He had tears in his eyes, and said he wanted to hug me. I closed my computer, put down my guitar, opened my arms and we embraced. He gave me an enormous hug, the kind a child would give. The song had broken though his walls of separation, the song gave him a small ray of hope. The song provided something he could hold on to, a small rung on the ladder to help him pull himself up with.

LISTEN TO SONG – CLICK HERE

Why must anyone “soldier on” when we now know that is a destructive and dangerous route, especially for soldiers themselves? We all need each other, and songs are a wonderful way of creating human connection. Songs can bring us out of isolation and into the beauty and mystery of being alive on a planet full of other living souls.

What I have learned is that the dominant narrative of a wounded person’s life can be rewritten into to a narrative of healing by a song. This happens not by trying to write a healing song, but by simply writing the truth, by singing the emotional truth.

While the experience is cathartic, it’s also transcendent in that the song is a move beyond the self toward others. The song serves as a catalyst for transformation, healing by engaging a re-description of self. It moves the frozen story along, thaws it, and releases some of the infection. It opens up channels of resonance with others who have felt the same way, or who have the ability to relate with empathy and compassion.

Songs have the power to change lives. As it turns out, every soldier’s song is a prayer for peace.

I can’t wait to make a record of these incredible songs!

Mary Nominated for GLAAD Media Award

I just got nominated for Outstanding Music Artist by the GLAAD Media Awards! I am thrilled to be recognized by this wonderful organization. Thanks y'all! The 26th Annual Awards Ceremonies will take place March 21, 2015 in Los Angeles, CA and May 9, 2015 in New York City. The GLADD media Awards recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives. The GLAAD Media Awards also fund GLAAD's work to amplify stories from the LGBT community and issues that build support for equality. - www.glaad.org

Behind the Song: The Rocket

(by Fred Eaglesmith) Son, could you help me on this platform? I’m not so good at climbing stairs I brought me a drink and some sandwiches I want to just sit and watch the trains

I come down here almost every Sunday My grandkids, they used to come too Now they drop me off at the front gate I guess that they got better things to do

Number 47 she’s a good one Number 63 sings like a bird Number 29, that’s the one they call The Rocket Hey, that’s the saddest train I ever heard

Son, I’m decorated veteran I fought in what they called the Great War I used to believe in everything it stood for I don’t believe in much anymore

Number 47 she’s a good one Number 63 sings like a bird Number 29, that’s the one they call The Rocket Hey, that’s the saddest train I ever heard

Son, you look just like my boy He stood here almost 40 years today He looked so good in that brand new soldier’s uniform But that Rocket never brought him back again

Headaches and heartaches and all kinds of pain, these are the parts of the railroad train. Trains are one of the great metaphors writers use to shine the light on the far reaches of the human heart—to demonstrate the comings and goings of love. There are hundreds and hundreds of songs that use trains to tell the stories of the hearts’ travels, and “The Rocket” is one of the best.

It is written from the perspective of a man who has experienced a loss so devastating he cannot fully transcend his sorrow, so he has ritualized his grief in order to deal with it. He’s compelled to visit and re-visit the site where he last saw his son alive, the place where he sent him off to war 40 years prior—the eponymous train station. He is an old man now, bent over with regret, and he has lost most—if not all—of his faith.  His body is also failing him, he has trouble with the stairs, and is forced to ask strangers to help him make his way up and down the flights for his weekly pilgrimage.

The utter brilliance of this song lies in the fact that old man does not choose to visit his son’s grave on his weekly pilgrimage. Instead, he chooses to visit the departure site, the place where he sent the boy off to war. It’s as though he is engaging in a penance for his actions, trying to make some kind of atonement for what he believes he did. We also get the feeling that the old fellow sits and stares at the trains trying to understand the enormity of what’s transpired, hoping somehow that if he stares long enough and hard enough, he might change the ending of the story.

His grandkids drop him off at the station, but they don’t join him there to watch the trains anymore, he’s left on his own to talk to the strangers who help him navigate the stairs ( and the emotions). He is compelled to tell his story each time, perhaps finding comfort in the telling. The universal human reaction to tragedy, to grief, is the need to tell and re-tell our story, it helps us move through the sorrow. But this old man is trapped in his pain, and he cannot find his way out of the maze. He feels responsible for his son’s death, and as we witness his pain, we feel compassion for him.

Nationalism and patriotism carried to their ultimate conclusions have repercussions, and this man has paid a high price for his devoted love and defense of his country—suffering both the loss of his son, and the loss of his faith. We assume the man is an American, but this is not necessarily so. This man could be of any nationality, and the pain would be the same. This song captures the essence of disillusionment through the old mans voice, the voice of the old soldier. We see the high cost of war through his eyes. This is not a protest song, or a peace song. It does not instruct us emotionally, it does not tell us how to feel about what has transpired. It only tells the story of one old man’s grief ritual. We take from it what we will, and draw our own conclusions. This is a story song well written, and the brilliance of story songs well told is that we  write our own endings and thus personally connect with the universal truths they reveal.

When I was a child my family was dealt a devastating blow during the Vietnam War when my cousin Phillip was killed. I was far too young to have any true understanding of what had happened. I can only remember the adults telling the story of the soldiers pulling up to my aunt Dot’s house to tell her that her child was gone, and her profound emotional reaction to those soldiers at the front door. They spoke in whispers, but I heard them, and tried to take it all in.

My father served in Korea, but he did not ever talk about his years there. When we lost Phillip I could see in his eyes some of what he must had gone through when he was a soldier. His wartime experiences suddenly showed, the weights hung in his eyes revealed themselves, they were weights even a child could see.

In those cold hard months following Phillip’s funeral, my daddy didn’t talk much at all, which was very out of character for him. We’d go sit with my aunt, and just sit there—for hours. The adults drinking coffee, the kids playing in the back, quietly, knowing to keep it down. Feeling the sorrow too, in our child hearts.

My cousin’s picture, taken in his soldier’s uniform, hung framed in the living room of my aunt’s house, above the table next to the TV. Over the years, I’d stare at it when we’d go visit, trying to understand what it meant to be killed in a war in a foreign place, a place we had seen only on a map. I can still see that picture of him in my mind, though I have not laid eyes on it in 40 years. The young soldier, looking strong and brave at the camera, hair buzzed short, hat tilted slightly sideways on his head, a serious look.  Phillip’s death was my introduction to mortality. His loss had a profound effect on my family, and though I was too young to really understand, I still carry the weight of it. Perhaps we all carry similar experiences, memories of our introduction to mortality.

“The Rocket” captures an emotional universe. It speaks for millions through the eyes of a single old man. This song is a classic, and Fred Eaglesmith is one of the best songwriters writing songs today, writing songs that will endure the test of time.

Order a copy of Live at Blue Rock HERE.