November 05, 2014

Publication title: Hamilton Spectator, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Hamilton
Writer: Graham Rockingham

Sarah McLachlan in Hamilton: Songs for her father

An entire generation of women grew up with the songs of Sarah McLachlan during the ’90s, teenagers and 20-somethings trying to make sense of a complicated world, breathing in the emotional highs and exhaling the lows.

McLachlan shared her emotions with her fans, offering validation and sometimes empowerment. She let them know they weren’t alone in their feelings. Blessed with a magnificent vocal range, McLachlan was young, beautiful and not ashamed to admit that she was just as confused as everyone else. The title of her album, “Fumbling Toward Ecstasy,” seemed to say it all.

At 46, McLachlan is still reaching out, perhaps even more so than before, with a new set of circumstances, a new set of travails to overcome.

“We’re all going through the same crazy stuff,” McLachlan says in an interview from the West Vancouver home she shares with her two daughters, India, 12, and Taja, 7, as well as former NHL hockey player Geoff Courtnall, her new love.

“It’s nice to know that someone else is going through it. I think that’s one of the greatest gifts that music offers us. Wow, I’m not alone in this. Someone else hears me and sees me and what they’re saying resonates with me.”

Her latest album, “Shine On,” is about family and relationships, lost loves and new ones, building a new life out of the ashes of an old one.

When McLachlan started working on the songs for the album, her life was undergoing dramatic change. She was still recovering from the breakup of her marriage to drummer Ashwin Sood when her adoptive father, Jack, died of cancer, leaving her parentless (Her mother had also died of cancer in 2001.)

As well, following a less than successful Lilith Fair tour in 2010, she parted ways with her longtime manager Terry McBride.

“It was a huge change, all the important male anchors in my life leaving at the same time,” says McLachlan who performs a near-sold-out concert Monday at Hamilton Place. “There was a lot of picking up of pieces, trying to figure out how to move forward and what my life was going to look like from there on.”

The loss of her father was particularly painful. She had grown much closer to him since the death of her mother. She had purchased a bungalow for him, just five blocks from her home. The two spent a lot of time together, especially after he became ill.

“We had some great times together,” she says about her father who worked as a marine biologist for the National Research Council in Halifax, where McLachlan was raised. “We didn’t have great conversations because that wasn’t the relationship that I had with my dad. He wasn’t a great talker. We’d just be together. We’d go for walks, sit in the garden together, talk about the flowers. He was very simple in that way. He didn’t like talking about his past. I’d say ‘tell me about your childhood,’ but he just didn’t want to talk about it.

“He was very solid. He had great integrity, a kind, simple guy.”

Much of the album is dedicated to her father. There is little hidden in tracks like “Song For My Father.” On “Surrender and Certainty” she sings about swimming with her father’s ashes at sea on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

“We spread his ashes in Tofino,” she says. “That was his favourite place. My whole family gathered. I wrote his name out in the sand and then we all walked out in the water and spread his ashes. Afterwards, I went out swimming with him. Everyone else went into the house, then the fog rolled in so you couldn’t tell sea from sky, and I just went in and swam.”

After her father’s death, McLachlan turned her attention to her two daughters. They, too, were suffering from the loss.

“They were very close, my little one in particular,” she says. “We still talk about him almost every night when we’re lying in bed cuddling. She’ll say ‘I miss Grandpa.'”

At least two of the new songs, “Beautiful Girl” and “Turn the Lights Down Low” are written about her relationship with her children.

“They’re growing up in front of our very eyes and we know it, so we try to hold onto all these sweet little moments.”

The album is not all about loss, though. One of its strongest tracks, “Flesh and Blood,” seethes with new-found passion, presumably with Courtnall.

“He lives with me,” she says about the 52-year-old former Vancouver Canuck. “We’re essentially shacking up at this point.

“He’s very much like my dad. He’s got so much integrity and he’s got such a strong work ethic. He’s kind. He cares for people and he’s so funny. And, yeah, he’s pretty yummy.”

The two met two years ago at a fundraiser McLachlan was hosting at her home for her Vancouver-based charity, the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, for at-risk youth.

“A friend of his brought him and I thought, ‘Wow, who is this guy? He’s got great eyes.’ So we were talking about how he loves fishing. I said, ‘Take me fishing.'”

Through Courtnall, McLachlan has become a new fan of salmon fishing. She is, however, still trying to learn the ins and outs of hockey.

“I find hockey really entertaining to watch,” she says. “I have no idea what’s going on, but it’s fun to watch. I think one of the things he likes about me is that I couldn’t care less.”