 |
 |
SN: When you started writing the book, you had no idea that your long-term relationship was going to be over by the time you finished. What was the most important realization during that time?
ME: The more I examined my path up to then, the more I could look back and say, "Yeah, this was f*cked up, I gave my power away here," and the more I could see how I was repeating these patterns in my relationship. Forcing myself to go back and examine and write it down, was like going through really, really good therapy before a big change and an emotional experience in my life.
SN: How did it compare to writing music or working in the studio?
ME: It was so different. Making a record, being in the studio, there's a craft: You choose this or that word, and you have these sounds and textures you create; it's like painting a picture. Writing a book is like vomiting. You can't hide behind anything. I suppose I could have written a more literary book and made it more colorful and artful but it's just "Blaaah! I did this and I went there."
SN: So for the new album, you had this mass of raw material that you channeled into carefully crafted work.
ME: Well, that was me doing what I really do, which is write music about what I'm going through. I put the fears, hopes, and pain - everything - into the music. And when I was feeling this and knowing it was all coming down and ending, I just went into the writing and into the studio. That healed me as much as anything else.
SN: Why did you decide to do this album without a band?
ME: Once again I sort of started it with something else in mind. I thought it was gonna be my Nebraska album - just me and my acoustic guitar, really sparse. And when I went in and started working with David Cole, who was the engineer and co-producer, he kept showing me options and I started building more and more. I played all the keyboards, the guitars, harmonica. I was like, "Find me a mandolin!" It was just a delightful experience in the midst of a lot of pain. And [Cole] is just a wonderful human being. He helped me personally as much as professionally.
SN: What made you decide to record this album on a computer?
ME: Well, I thought this was going to be a very small project, just these sad breakup songs, a one-off piece of work. I was just gonna go in for a couple weeks and put 'em down. It was kind of a lucky choice. I really didn't have a concrete vision of what the end result would be. We would start with each song and there would be this blank screen, and we would just start laying things down. The one thing I did say was, "I am going to be completely open to any of this; if it goes in a certain unforeseen direction, great."
SN: Could you talk about the trajectory of the songs? I understand you very specifically sequenced the songs with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
ME: It's a journey, it's a concept. It's the pain of "Lover, Please," the realization of "Oh my God, this is gonna hurt but here it is." Then the darkness of "The Prison," which is the realization of my role in where I am in my life. You know, I've carried this with me and I can't say it's all this other person's fault. Going into "Walking on Water": There's no turning back. It's impossible. And then "Down to One," a sort of a reckoning with myself. "Goodnight" is a turning. I'm brand new. Oh, ow, how sharp [and] new this life is. And then "It's Only Me" is kind of the scream in the last bit of darkness before it breaks into "I Want to Be in Love," which is finally myself going, "OK, what do I want? If it's all starting again I wanna do it right this time." "Please Forgive Me" is imagining what it's going to be like when I get back out there in the world, and then "Heal Me." I certainly wasn't healing yet when I started writing it, but I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, I could see that it was possible to get there.
SN: "The Prison" is sort of this straight-up folk song. It feels like this very gentle side of yourself that I don't think the public is so familiar with.
ME: Oh, wow. That was one of the last songs I wrote, and I wanted to reckon with the whole arc of my emotional experience. It was like, OK, I'm going back to Leavenworth, Kan. And Leavenworth is the prison town; it was always the symbol of my childhood. And so I sort of went back to my roots: The song is very simple and folksy, and country, even.
|
|
| < back Mama's got a brand-new girlfriend ...go to next page > |
|
 |
|
