I Love You, America: November News
Mary Gauthier on "I Love You, America" with Sarah Silverman Airs 11/2, 6pm ET on HULU
Happy November!
I’m in full-blown new record pre-release mode! My new record, Rifles & Rosary Beads, is out January 26th, 2018 and contains eleven new songs, all co-written with Veterans and their families. As the project begins to move out into the world, it’s starting to get exciting.
I am thrilled to announce that Sarah Silverman invited me to be a guest on her new show called I Love You, America. The segment airs Thursday, November 2nd, at 6pm ET exclusively on HULU.
I flew to LA last week to tape the segment. I sat on the couch next to her and she interviewed me, and asked me to play parts of three songs. It turns out she loves sad songs, and I have a few to choose from!
I'm not sure which ones will make the final cut, but I played March 11,1962 ( from The Foundling), Mercy Now (from Mercy Now), and Bullet Holes In the Sky (from Rifles and Rosary Beads, coming out January 26th, 2018).
We talked about how songs can be conduits for empathy and road maps into a stranger’s heart, which upon inspection - mirrors our own. I’ve long said that on the highest level songs help us know each other, and can plug us into the spiritual and sacred realm of faith, hope, compassion, mercy, charity, forgiveness and humility.
Through the alchemy of song, even sad songs create the feeling of connection because we are reassured that we are not alone. This connection is why singing the blues can make us feel better.
Sarah's show is all about a divided nation having hard discussions, and we talked about how songs can help those conversations along. We talked about Rifles & Rosary Beads, the Veterans record I am releasing in January, and how songs written with Veterans can become conduits for re-connection and Post Traumatic Growth.
The interview was over in a blur, and I was back in the car, headed to another town. Again, the air date is Thursday, 11/2 - streaming at 6pm ET exclusively on HULU. Sarah will also put the show out in pieces on social media.
This Thursday's episode also includes the song "Somebody Broke Her," written and performed by Sarah and country singer Lee Thomas Miller. People will receive a downloadable version of it if they donate using this link: https://www.cfmt.org/ilyamerica, where 100% of proceeds support Las Vegas nonprofits helping with immediate and long-term needs of the victims. Preview the song here:
http://people.com/country/sarah-silverman-country-song-las-vegas-victims/
I’m really honoured to be a part of this conversation Sarah is having with America.
FOLLOW SARAH ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH MARY ON "I LOVE YOU, AMERICA" WITH SARAH SILVERMAN
VISIT SARAH'S WEBSITE FOR MORE UPDATES.
RIFLES & ROSARY BEADS contains eleven new songs, all co-written with Veterans and their families. If you pre-order it now, I will sign it for you, and it wil help me cover the cost of manufacturing and production. I'd sure appreciate your help with that.
As always, thank you for being a part of my journey! ~ Mary
Pre-Order "Rifles & Rosary Beads:" New Album Out January 26, 2018
I was bound to something bigger
More important than a single human life
I wore my uniform with honour
My service was not a sacrifice
But what saves you in the battle
Can kill you at home
A soldier, soldiering on
- Soldering On (by Mary Gauthier and Jennifer Marino)
I have a new record coming out January 26th!
Rifles & Rosary Beads contains eleven new songs, all co-written with Veterans and their families.
If you pre-order it now I will sign it for you, and it will help me cover the cost of manufacturing and production. I’d sure appreciate your help with that.
Over the last four years, as many of you know, I’ve been thrilled to work closely with SongwritingWith:Soldiers, attending retreats all over the country and writing songs with service members. Writing with soldiers has changed me. I’ve learned the deeper meaning of service, sacrifice, and love. Co-writing with Veterans has helped me to see what songs do on a higher level, and pointed me to the best use of my songwriting gift.
Working with service members has made me a better listener, a better team member. It's been humbling. SW:S has given me an amazing opportunity to meet people I never would have met, and hear their stories, which have moved me deeply. It's connected me to people who have become like family to me.
The process of writing songs with them has been deeply therapeutic for me personally, and some of the Veterans feel the same way. But it's not therapy. It is empathy: the making of art.
Check out the video trailer for the record.
Thank you so much for your support!
Mary
Mercy Now for Houston: Harvey's Helping Hands
This week marks the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. As I see powerful images like this one from Hurricane Harvey, I am reminded of incredible humanitarian efforts in the midst of tragedy. I am reminded of the hope that brings us together during times of need. God bless the helpers, the givers, the first responders, and the ones who do not look away.
While the divisions in our country are deep, there’s one thing we can probably all agree on: when a natural disaster of Biblical proportions strikes and people are suffering, most people care, and want to help. The rains of Hurricane Harvey are still wreaking havoc on the gulf coast. Tens of thousands of families are in need, displaced, looking for shelter.
I have friends in LaGrange, Texas. 500 of the residents of LaGrange are now homeless because 10% of the homes are uninhabitable, due to massive flooding from Hurricane Harvey.
So many small towns are under water. Yesterday, there were waves with whitecaps on I-10 in southeast Texas, just south of Beaumont (pictured below).
However, this week a hero on a jet ski rescued a Texas grandmother from her living room (pictured at top of page). Folks waited in long lines to volunteer. Thousands of people have been mobilized in one of the biggest rescue operations in history. Lives have been spared. People and pets have been saved.
If you want to help, CLICK HERE to visit a list of organizations compiled by the Houston Chronicle doing ground level work.
I personally sent some money to The Montrose Center.
Click HERE to watch the Katrina version of Mercy Now.
If we can just keep caring about each other, we might get through these times better for the struggle.
September is upon us. The light is changing. Summer is winding down. As I travel from town to town, talking to folks before and after shows, reflecting on the current state of affairs, I can’t help but wonder, how can I use my voice to make a difference, now?
There are no easy answers, but I will not be silent. That, I know for sure. Songs are coming, and I will sing my truth, as always.
As always, thank you for subscribing, I am grateful to have you on board.
The Power of Two: 30 Years of Indigo Girls
The Power of Two: 30 Years of Indigo Girls
By Mary Gauthier, Guest Columnist
The Bluegrass Situation
Lesbian icons. When I was a kid, the mere thought of such a thing was laughable. I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the 1970s. There were no iconic gay women. Hell, there were no gay women, period. When I began to wonder if I was gay, I went to the library looking for lesbian authors. My research brought me to one book: Radclyffe Hall’s sad book, The Well of Loneliness. I read it, then landed on its predecessor, the bi-monthly mailed-in-a plain-brown-paper-wrapper-lesbian-newsletter, LC (Lesbian Connection). A nod to Hall’s 1928 book, the polite LC personals were called “The Wishing Well.”
LC introduced me to “womyns” music. I loved the great Canadian folk singer Ferron, but as an angst-filled, queer, '70s teenager from the Deep South, I did not relate to much of the womyns music scene. I didn’t fit in there, either. I found myself listening to Southern folk singers like John Prine, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and other male songwriters whose words I felt close to.
Imagine my surprise when I moved to Boston in my early 20s and heard the Indigo Girls for the first time on WUMB college radio. There was SOMETHING THERE for me, personally -- a brand new, yet deeply familiar sound. It resonated. I FELT it. Though I did not know it consciously, a part of me understood: Those voices were gay women from the South, like me. I parked my black Toyota restaurant truck in the driveway, turned the radio up loud, sat there stunned, and listened as the song played out. The sound infiltrated my soul. What was this, some kind of cosmic lesbian musical sorcery? Who were these people? They fucking rocked. The harmonies peeled back layers of scar tissue at my center, exposing a longing in me that I could not name. The song coming out of the radio was called "Strange Fire." Hearing it for the first time in my truck that evening literally hurt.
I come to you with strange fire
I make an offering of love
The incense of my soil is burned
By the fire in my blood
Those harmonies landed like a déjà vu -- utterly familiar, but not at all known. The sound was pointing me to something vital about myself, but I did not know what it was. The alchemy evoked a buried self I had not yet met, the future songwriter in me, entombed in a personal Pompeii, frozen under layers of active drug and alcohol addiction. When the song ended, I turned off the radio, clenched the steering wheel, laid my head down, closed my eyes, and cried. I banged both hands on the wheel ... harder, then harder still.
I was drunk, stoned, and tired of feeling alone. I had a hole in me that the call to songwriting had once upon a time tried to answer. But the call wasn’t even a memory anymore. I had put my guitar and musical longing aside, buried them both in a past I did not contemplate, and forgot about them. Women who did not (or could not) abide the compulsory rules of gender -- the sexualized female appearance tailored to the male gaze -- didn’t stand a chance in the real music business, right? I’d grown up, turned away from music. Made peace with 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.”
I was a restaurateur now, a businesswoman, a CEO, a chef. I established and ran several restaurants. I had what thought I wanted. I was young and successful. But I felt empty. There was money, but it didn’t matter. I’d spent the last decade subconsciously flirting with death. I lived with a gaping hole in the center of my being that I poured booze and dope and romance and success and any other thing I could jam in there to deaden the pain, the sadness of an unlived life. I was lost, careening the wrong way down a one-way street. I did not know how to turn around.
So I worked harder, tried to make more money, and became grandiose. Angry. I demanded that those around me work harder, too. We had to push the limits of what was possible. I was hoping to succeed my way out of the feeling of being lost. Somehow, the sound of that song on the radio saw me and called to me, but I couldn’t understand what it was telling me about myself. I could not make sense of the visceral response it released in my gut, even as the waves of emotion doubled me over.
A few months later, I was arrested for drunk driving. The court sentenced me to mandatory rehab. I got sober. Soon after, I decided to find the source of those magical voices I’d heard on the radio. I called the station, described the song, and the DJ said they called themselves the Indigo Girls. I went to Tower Records and bought the record, Strange Fire.
I went to see them perform at the Paradise, a Boston rock club. It was 1990. I was a few months clean and sober, and what I saw that night made me dizzy, weak, and queasy. The mostly female audience was screaming the singers' names, crying and shouting the words to the songs, as the two women on stage sang smiling, delighting in the raucous, carnival-like excitement. In short, the fans were out of their fucking minds. The scene that night was like the black and white footage of girls screaming for the Beatles in 1964. For the first time ever, I saw women jumping up and down and screaming at the top of their voices for women. It was pandemonium. No Well of Loneliness here, this was a grand public display of woman-loving-woman energy, a giant wave of out-ness that rode the waves of the music being played on stage, blasting through the house speakers. It blew my mind.
I’d been out for years, so it wasn’t the queerness that freaked me out; it was something else. I could not name what was happening inside me, but I left early, after going into the bathroom, afraid I would literally be sick. My knees could barely hold me up. I was only a few months sober. I wasn’t even sure I saw what I had just witnessed. I was utterly confused. I loved the music, the passion, and the songs. What the hell was making me so queasy? I had no idea then that the pain of an unlived life was dropping me to my knees in the not-so-clean stall in the women’s room in the Paradise Rock Club.
I went and saw them play again at the 1991 Newport Folk Festival. I’d listened to the Strange Fire record hundreds of times, and had just bought their self-named second record, Indigo Girls. The record had thrown off a smash radio hit, "Closer to Fine." The Indigo Girls became Newport headliners the summer I celebrated my first year of sobriety. As a gift to myself, I bought a ticket to the festival.
The skies over Newport, Rhode Island, burst open with rain before the Indigo Girls took the stage, but I didn’t care. I found something to hold over my head. Maybe a stranger loaned me an umbrella? I don’t remember. What I do remember was the absolute joy I felt watching them with a full band, brilliantly and confidently take over the entire universe, as the rain came crashing down and rivers of water raced down the hill, magically splitting along both sides of my little island of safety. I had not felt joy like that since … maybe … ever.
Gone was the upset in my gut, the confusing angst, even though the heightened emotions in the audience at Fort Adams State Park was like the Paradise Rock Club times 10,000. I was becoming one of the singing-along-out-loud fans. There were screaming, crying, lyric-shouting women as far as the eye could see and, this time, it made me smile. Song after song, women running up to the stage in tears reaching for them as security had to push back the surge. Beautiful young girls threw themselves and their passionate, hysterical love at the women on stage. It was amazing. I was witnessing a seismic shift in American culture, and in myself.
The Indigo Girls went on to rule the Newport Folk Festival in the 1990s, appearing as headliners nine times in 10 years. They were stars and bona fide lesbian icons. I had no way of knowing that, a decade later, I’d be standing up on that very same stage myself. I was just beginning to feel the pull to my own music, dusting off the old guitar that had sat in my closet for so long.
What I did know was that a door had opened. Things were different now, and the world wasn’t going to go back to how it was before. The Indigo Girls had shattered the glass ceiling, the ceiling that no “lesbian-looking lesbians” had been able to smash through before them. Soon, lesbian artist after lesbian artist made their way through the opening the Indigos created. I become one of them.
I doubt I would have had the audacity to become a songwriter and take the stage without Amy and Emily laying the groundwork for up-and-coming artists. I owe them a huge debt and a heartfelt thank you. The spirit that flows through their music, and through all good music, contains much-needed truths that can help bring lost souls back home.
In their highest form, songs are vibrations from a higher world, which humans have been given the power to channel. Songs are a gift, an offering, and an open exchange between singer and audience. Songs are emotional electricity and know no sexual preference, gender, race, nationality, or age. Some are more than just sweet melodies or sellable entertainment products. The most meaningful ones are powerful medicines that can connect us to ourselves, each other, and to the divine. They carry emotional truths that burn through time and space, touching something eternal.
The songs of the Indigo Girls pointed me home to me, when I needed it most -- a date with destiny, by divine decree. By being authentic, Amy and Emily have pointed millions of other people home as well. Damn near everyone I know (straight and gay) has an Indigo Girls positive impact story. The world is a better, more inclusive place because of their music. So, I say with great joy, happy 30th anniversary to the Indigo Girls and to Strange Fire. You have done much for many, and we are better because of you and your music.
-- Mary Gauthier
A Love Note From Buffalo | July Newsletter
A Love Note From Buffalo
Josh Geartz did it! He rode his wheelchair 422 miles to draw attention to the problem of Veteran suicide.
His goal was to draw attention to the ongoing suicide epidemic among Veterans:
22 Veterans a day are dying by their own hand.
Along the 422-mile ride from Indiana to New York, he completed over 40 media interviews, six television appearances, and met people in every town he rolled through.
As he rolled in to Buffalo, with his friend and fellow Veteran Roger behind him in the spare wheelchair, and Rob on a skateboard, a police escort in front of them, I was unexpectedly moved to tears.
In fact, I cried like a baby.
Have you ever cried because something is beautiful? It’s humbling, to bear witness to a human beings courage and devotion to others. The realization is primal, a deep knowing. This is what we are here for, what we humans are made to do: to help each other, love each other, and encourage each other.
Josh rolled in, took my heart in his hands, and opened it up wider.
Then Josh joined me on stage at The Sportsmens Tavern in Buffalo
and we played the song we wrote together through Songwriting With Soldiers called
"Still On The Ride."
When the show was done, and we were packing to leave, the bar phone rang.
Someone who’d seen Josh on TV decided to match the money he’d raised for SW:S ($16,000!). Tears again! A Hollywood ending to a day that gave me so many reasons to keep on believing: People are good, life has meaning, and service is its own reward.
You can continue to support Josh
and the many Veterans who can benefit from a Songwriting With Soldiers Retreat:
Still On The Ride | Support Josh Geartz
Still On The Ride
Josh is riding in his wheelchair for 422 miles in June to raise money for Songwriting With Soldiers, the non-profit program he credits with saving his life.
He also wants to draw attention to the ongoing suicide epidemic among Veterans:
22 Veterans a day are dying by their own hand.
There will be plenty of media coverage along the way. The ride is a month long, and Josh will be able to be of service to hundreds of thousands of Veterans as he bravely proceeds down the highway in his chair.
I know the money will come, but he needs some upfront money to get him started.
Would you toss him some support?
A few bucks and a message of encouragement will go a long way right now.
I will join Josh at the end of his ride, for an early show at The Sportsman in Buffalo, NY on June 25th. We will come together to celebrate Josh’s efforts.
Josh and I will perform the song we wrote together, appropriately called "Still On The Ride." Here we are playing it together at a church gig in Ann Arbor a few months ago:
Thank you in advance for your help!
Lets send Josh off wrapped in a blanket of love!
Ride The Peace Train | May 2017
Ride The Peace Train
I’m hosting a musical train trip with Eliza Gilkyson & Gretchen Peters through some of the most stunning parts of Alaska this September.
Come join us September 13-18 as we roll through the breath-taking Kenai Peninsula and explore the music of the Great American Songbook, as well as our own songs.
We will be singing songs of freedom, songs of peace, and songs of struggle. Bring your guitar, three chords and the truth, and we’ll have a rolling hootenanny on the rails!
Come solo, bring your spouse, bring your love interest, or bring your mamma. We’re going to make sure there’s plenty of laughter and good food. There will be Bald Eagles, Beluga Whales, Otters and Puffins. And I’m also looking forward to the conversation, communion, and camaraderie that comes when we ride the musical rails together.
The jaw dropping beauty of this most amazing place is a bucket list must see before the permafrost melts. The time to see Alaska is now.
CLICK HERE TO RIDE THE PEACE TRAIN
In The Studio | April 2017
I hired the gifted Neilson Hubbard to build a remote studio in my living room, and to bring a band in to record the songs I’ve been writing with veterans in the Songwriting With Soldiers program over the last few years.
In The Studio!
The Veterans show up nervous, and a little shy. The job of Explosive Ordinance Disposal experts (EOD) is to dismantle unexploded bombs, and render them safe. The EOD experts and other Veterans come to a Songwriting With Soldiers retreat unsure of what they will find. Most have never talked to civilians about their service. One day into co-writing, the Veterans are willingly telling stories and discovering the transformational power of an honest song. This powerful process happens every time. I'm thrilled to announce that I'm making a record of the songs I've been writing with Veterans over the last four years.
I hired the gifted Neilson Hubbard (pictured in the center) to build a remote studio in my living room, and to bring a band in to record the songs I’ve been writing with veterans in the Songwriting With Soldiers program over the last few years.
Michele Gazich (left) flew in from Italy to play viola and violin and Beth Neilson Chapman (right) came and sang on the song we-co-wrote with six veterans' wives at a retreat at Boulder Crest. We are also filming a documentary of the writing and recording process. I'll be writing a lot more about this soon.
In other news, I'm headed to a castle in Scotland to teach a workshop with 15 songwriters. There are still 2 seats left, so grab 'em if you are interested in a big adventure. I will be playing in England and Scotland after the workshop, with Michele Gazich. TOUR DATES HERE.
And special thanks to Tim McGraw for recording my song, co-written with Crit Harmon, "I Drink"! You can find Tim's version of "I Drink" on his "The Ultimate Collection" Album.
Listen HERE on Spotify.
Also, I have a new website! A huge thanks to Katherine Forbes at Designing The Row for making it all work. To celebrate, we're offering every single CD I've ever recorded (plus a bonus CD: The Foundling Alone - demo's from The Foundling record) for $50. The Limited Time Bundle Offer includes 9 CD's for $50. Visit the STORE HERE.
As always, thank you for your support! Happy Spring!
#talkingtostrangers
Ever since the election, I've been talking to people a lot more than I used to, striking up conversations with strangers that look friendly, asking them about themselves.
Ever since the election, I've been talking to people a lot more than I used to, striking up conversations with strangers that look friendly, asking them about themselves. Something in me is telling me to try and connect with people around me, even though it takes some effort, because by nature I am a fairly introverted extrovert.
I'm reaching out, making conversations.
My uber driver to the Nashville airport was an immigrant, from Northern Iraq. Jahmir's been in the US since the 90's. He received asylum in America, for safety from torture under the Saddam Hussein dictatorship. He has a wife, two children. He has kind eyes, and a gentle voice. I told him it was a pleasure to meet him, and that I was glad he was my driver. I tried to make my eyes say that I saw him, I liked him, and that I was safe to talk to. I tried to make him feel welcome and comfortable.
As we started talking, he said he is an American citizen, but ever since the election people were calling him a foreigner, and treating him differently. People who he thought were his friends are turning on him, and he is afraid for his family. He said he was worried about his children, but that he believes if they just stay kind, and be nice to everyone, everything is going to be ok. He talked about how shocking it is to think someone is your friend, and then as they pull away, to see that they never were.
I told him that I understood. It is happening to me too, now. I told him I am gay. Some people who I thought were my friends are now pulling away from me too. I told him someone drew a swastika on the door of the West End Methodist Church where I go to meetings, and trashed the “God Loves Everyone” banners.
He said, “But we are all alike, there is no such thing as different! Humans, we are all human.” I said yes, I know, I know. But there are many who do not know, and they have been given license to openly hate. I told him that people like you, and me, we’re at risk for violence, and we have to be careful. His face looked sad, and he looked down. Then he looked up again and said, “But this is a great country, a great place to live!” I said, “Yes, yes, it is. It is. I know we will find a way to get through this time of violence and hate. We are better than this."
When he dropped me off at the airport, he helped me with my bags, and we hugged.
We told each other to stay safe.
This Land Was Made For You And Me | Fall 2016
Our voices matter during this election. We are stronger together.
Hello Again!
I am a folk singer by nature, a child of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joe Hill, and the early Bob Dylan. I believe in inclusion, diversity, social justice and expanding the American Dream to include everyone, in equal amounts. This election year, I felt called to jump into the political fray and throw an old fashioned hootenanny! The powers that be at the Nashville City Winery let me have a night, and with the help of many friends, we pulled together a grass roots fundraiser for The Democratic Party of Tennessee in less than 30 days, raising $6,000 for local elections and re-energizing our local community.
The Mayor of Nashville Megan Berry kicked it off and spoke about our great city. Callie Khouri, the creator of the TV show Nashville, (and Thelma and Louise), spoke about using our voices. We had amazing young speakers, including the transgender teenager Henry Ashton Seaton who single-handedly got the idiotic trans-shaming bathroom law shelved here in Tennessee, and Youth Poet laureate Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay, who Michelle Obama has invited to the White House. Ashley Cleveland, Odessa Settles and all of the musicians made a joyful noise, raising the roof between guest speakers. To close the evening, we all sang Woody Guthrie’s anthem, “This Land Is Your Land.”
“When the sun comes shining, then I was strolling,
With the wheat fields waving, the dust clouds rolling,
The voice come a-chanting, and the fog was lifting.
This land was made for you and me.”
Musicians pictured here: Kenny Greenberg, Band Leader; Mary Gauthier; Webb Wilder, MC; Rebekkah del Rio; Radney Foster; Ashley Cleveland; Tomi Lunsford; Odessa Settles; James House; Warren Denny; Robin Eaton.
Songs matter, as I have said so many times here in this newsletter, and also in my book (I just turned in the first draft to the publisher!). Songs can bring hope, unity and healing. We need all of that here in Tennessee. Artists, like so many others, are sometimes scared to speak up. Musicians have been bullied into silence after the plug was pulled on the Dixie Chicks, and many cower in a fear-based hiding, scared that if we speak up, the plug will be pulled on us too. I see this as not only bad for art, but also bad for our Republic.
If artists are silenced – who will be the truth tellers? Songs help us see that “united” we can accomplish what we could never accomplish individually. This election year, as a group, we managed to pull off one for the ages. Special thanks to everyone who made this evening possible.
Humble and Kind
In what’s shaped up to be the meanest year in politics I have ever witnessed, my friend Lori McKenna won NSAI Song Of The Year with her song Humble and Kind. How’s that for beautiful? Congrats to Lori, and congrats to my friend Beth Nielsen Chapman, who was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame! Click HERE to watch: Humble and Kind.
One More Thing:
Please listen to this brand new song by Radney Foster, please. It’s an important song, and captures what is currently happening. Click HERE to watch: All That I Require
“Our voices matter during this election. We are stronger together.
As always, thank you for being a part of my journey.”
- Mary
Pride: Hope in The Midst of Tragedy | Summer 2016
This June, I once again had the honor of marching in Nashville’s Equality Walk as part of the City of Nashville’s Annual Pride Festival.
Happy Summer!
This June, I once again had the honor of marching in Nashville’s Equality Walk as part of the City of Nashville’s Annual Pride Festival. Just two weeks after the horror in the gay bar in Orlando, the mood was hopeful and encouraging. Over 20,000 people attended the celebration, which included 100 new vendors, plenty of live music, and a delightful new Kids’ stage. Over 3,000 people showed up for the walk (1,000 more than last year) – including members the Metro Police Department, in uniform, for the first time.
I moved to Nashville in 2001, and the Nashville Pride event that year consisted of only a couple hundred people. Nashville has grown, yes, but more importantly, fear is being pushed back. Hope, the all important and necessary ingredient of liberty, continues to expand.
Every June, when I go to Pride, I am reminded of the importance of community and standing for what I believe in. There’s no going back. We have come too far. People are good. Love is everywhere. Do not give up. Ever.
Human evolution is fueled by change. Dr. King believed the long arc of the moral universe bends towards justice. It is human change that arches the bow. For us to change collectively, we must evolve individually. The fuel that advances us is truth, in all its forms.
As a songwriter, and a songwriting teacher, I believe the most revolutionary act a songwriter can engage in is to simply be honest. Words matter. When paired with music that amplifies their meaning, they become passageways to hope: for the individual, the group, a nation, and the world.
Elie Wiesel said, “Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.” Truthtelling is necessary for a civilized society to remain civil. When artists are silenced, either through censorship, fear, or greed, it is the beginning of the end of freedom of speech. It heralds the dissolution of the collective spirit of a people.
No form of creative expression is more popular than songs. An education is not required to understand them- they are embraced by all strata of society. Great paintings may go unseen; great novels unread; but great songs have the most pronounced chance of crossing the divide, reaching in, and affecting multitudes.
Here’s to the truthtellers, the artists, and the songwriters; to all the brave souls on this planet that show up and report back from the front lines of the struggle for justice and truth. I am with you.
With Love,
Mary
On Being's Parker Palmer discusses "Mercy Now"
Parker Palmer Discusses “Mercy Now” in his blog for Krista Tippett’s On Being Public Radio Podcast.
Parker Palmer Discusses “Mercy Now” in his blog for Krista Tippett’s On Being Public Radio Podcast:
Click HERE to read the full article. Excerpt below:
MERCY NOW
BY PARKER J. PALMER (@PARKERJPALMER), COLUMNIST
Over the past ten days, as yet another tsunami of gun violence and senseless death has swept the U.S., I’ve found myself growing more silent.
…In the midst of my daily work, I’ve also spent time walking in the woods, reading poetry, and listening to music. One song in particular, Mary Gauthier’s “Mercy Now,” has been especially healing for me. I listen to it several times a day for the strange solace that catharsis can bring, a release without answers. I share it here in the hope that others will find it helpful, too.
About On Being (www.onbeing.org/about):
“On Being is a Peabody Award-winning public radio conversation and podcast, a Webby Award-winning website and online exploration, a publisher and public event convener. On Being opens up the animating questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live? We explore these questions in their richness and complexity in 21st-century lives and endeavors. We pursue wisdom and moral imagination as much as knowledge; we esteem nuance and poetry as much as fact.”
Mercy (and Love): May 2016
Mercy and love are who we are, unwounded. Songwriting (and all the arts) are how we explore the depths of our being to ask the big questions of meaning, purpose and value. The process is one of self discovery, more than self expression.
Hello Again!
NYC and surrounding areas, look out for Three Women and the Truth. We’re headed your way May 12-14.
Later this month I’ll be at the Strawberry Music Festival in California and the Kerrvillle Folk Festival in Texas.
And be sure to join me in June for a 3-Day Intensive Songwriting Workshop in Nashville. We still have a few spots available!
In the meantime, here is the latest update on my book, which I am continuing to write in between tour dates from planes, vans, hotel rooms & green rooms!
I wrote the story below as a student at a wonderful writing retreat last month. Surrounded by other writers, and an amazing instructor, Suzanne Kingsbury, the words poured out of me, and on to the page.
Here’s a bit of what I came up with: "Mercy (and Love)"
Mercy and love are who we are, unwounded. Songwriting (and all the arts) are how we explore the depths of our being to ask the big questions of meaning, purpose and value. The process is one of self discovery, more than self expression.
When we choose to listen to the soft voice deep inside us, and surrender the ego to that gentle knowing, truth rises up through the gut, through the heart, through the soul, onto the page, into the song, onto the canvas, and out of the door, up and up and out, into the hearts of fellow travelers, who will receive it with gratitude because the truth is what's needed before all other things.
The need for truth is Primal, as necessary as food and water. And what is the truth? We belong to each other. We need each other. Mercy (and love) are the roads we travel, home. Spirit blows truth through songwriters on the winds of the creative process, and our creations have the power to free us from untruths.
Dr. King began writing his mighty book "Strength to Love" when jailed for holding a prayer vigil outside Albany City Hall. In his jail cell, Dr. King wrote, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” So it was then, so it is now.
We are all writing from one kind of jail cell or another, working to free ourselves.
Our songs are conversations, not sermons. They move out into the world as dialogues, not only to entertain, but to engage. They come to us to show us the way, and we offer them as gifts, generosities, to those who might receive them.
As always, thank you for being a part of my journey!
~ Mary Gauthier
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.
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.
"Songs have always been a way for me to create a connection with people, and I think connections are how we heal." – Mary Gauthier
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.”
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
“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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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!