In the ABC studios’ green room last week, Sarah McLachlan perched herself on a stool and strummed a ukelele while a stylist fussed over her hair and makeup. “I’m playing a corporate gig tonight,” she explains in the cavernous, industrial elevator that lowers us to _Good Morning America’_s street-level set. “I haven’t played a ukelele in a while, but they don’t have a piano there, so . . . ”
Of all the nineties neo-folk feminist power balladeers, Lilith Fair founder Sarah McLachlan best managed to keep her spleen in check (unlike say, Alanis Morissette) while avoiding an opposite and worst fate, like the honey-drizzled semi-manufactured likability of fellow Lilith performer Sheryl Crow. It might be because a good portion of her newer fans have probably never heard of Lilith Fair—they found their way to her through the DJ Tiësto remix of her song “Silence,” which even today is her second most popular track on Spotify.
Now a 46-year-old mother of two, McLachlan seems somewhat amused by her history. “God, those songs have legs. I remember the first time I was in a club and I was like, That’s me!” she laughs. “I can’t even remember the name of that club anymore. Back when I used to go out.”
Before playing her new song “Beautiful Girl” for the live studio audience, McLachlan explains to _Good Morning America’_s Amy Robach that her father’s death a few years ago served as the catalyst to write her new album, Shine On. Upstairs again after her performance, sitting on a leatherette couch back in the green room, McLachlan is appealingly less certain, less willing to wrap up “in a tidy little box” her adult musical identity.
Here’s what she had to say.
How has writing music changed for you, now that you’ve grown up, have a family, reached the highest level of success—is it harder, do you worry about your relevance?
Doubt is what propels us. I grew up with a mother who always said I would fail. That was a big part of what pushed me onward. But I have different motivations. My criteria are different now. I’m less concerned with being taken seriously. Before I hit 30 and even after I felt like there were things I couldn’t write about because they were too trite or silly. Back in the day I certainly got dubbed the Debbie downer songwriter.
And anyway who wants to write when they’re happy. If you start to dissect happiness, it’s going to dissipate. It’s such a fleeting thing. I didn’t tend to write when I was happy or I didn’t tend to write about happy things. Darkness and loss and suffering—that’s juicy. There’s a ton of fodder to wade through. And none of us get to this point in our lives unscathed.
How literal a starting point for this album was your father’s death?
His death will be four years ago in December. And it was at least three and a half years ago when I started writing this album. But I wrote “Monsters” first, which has nothing to do with my dad. It’s always hard to talk about a record and wrap it up in a tidy little box. Sure my dad is all over the record. The experience of losing him was part and parcel with all of the big male anchors in my life going away. I separated from my husband around the same time. I separated from my management and label of 24 years. So all the male anchors sort of dispersed at once. It took a long time for me to sort through that, what it meant.
I’m 46 now. I have two not-so-small-any more kids—they’re almost seven and twelve. So the last number of years have been about, ‘How do I want rest of my life to look? Do I sit and feel complacent or do I continue towards transcendence?’ You know and really try to push the envelope, try to better myself and do something big. And live big. Live large. That’s one of the things my dad taught me. He had cancer and it was pretty hideous at the end, but he lived every day. He wasn’t waiting to die.
Making this album must have been therapeutic.
It’s catharsis. There are always issues, problems, questions I am grappling with—and for me the best way of expressing that is through music. I’m not a great communicator. Words are very difficult for me to find in the moment. Even lyric writing is hard for me.
I have 50 songs with great melodies. But trying to come up with lyrics for them is incredibly difficult. It’s the work part of it. And having two kids is the most amazing thing in the world but it’s also a huge distraction. People ask why it has taken four years between records. I have kids. I have a free music school in Vancouver with over 700 kids. It’s not about sending kids to Julliard; it’s about giving them the opportunity to express themselves and become who they are in a really nurturing environment.
There’s a sense that parenting, whether your own kids or working with others’ kids, plays a big part in your drive to create.
With parenting there’s a lot of self-loathing. I’m a perfectionist and I believe in impeccability in all things. When I set myself to that standard I often fall short. A big part of my process is letting that self-loathing be what it is and admit to myself, I screwed up. So I didn’t get the mommy of the year award. The great thing about being human is we always get a second chance. But I have to look in the mirror and feel proud. The school is part of that. We are defined by what we do, not what we say. I recognize that I am a role model. There is a weight to that.
Along those lines, you praised Lorde for being a good role model when she posted un-retouched photos from a magazine shoot. Anyone else you like these days?
I love Adele. She stands for being exactly who she is. Lorde is a great example. But to be honest, my head has been in the sand so much lately. When I choose to listen to music, I go back to the seventies. I pull out my tried-and-true Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Neil Young, Tom Waits. Don’t you think 1972 was the best year ever? Peter Gabriel was great too—early Genesis. But I don’t listen to other contemporary musicians much. Well, other than radio top 40, but just when I take my kids to school—they insist on it.