March 02, 2015

Publication title: qctimes.com, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: Bruce R. Miller

Sarah McLachlan finds music the perfect way to deal with life

Those highly emotional songs that Sarah McLachlan sings don’t push her into a funk every time she performs them. Quite the opposite.

“I went through all that stuff, and now, when I sing them, there’s such a sense of release and joy. I’m not in those places anymore. I’m on the other side and able to sing from a real sense of freedom,” she says.

“Angel,” in particular, gave her a “Debbie Downer” reputation because it was so pervasive. Used for an ASPCA appeal, it struck an emotional chord and frequently prompted television viewers to turn away whenever it came on.

“It worked because it raised $30 million, but it did not help that Debbie Downer thing in the least,” McLachlan says.

In concert and in “real” life, the Grammy winner insists, “I’m really a happy person.” She laughs. “Honest!”

“One of the most beautiful things art gives us is the opportunity to share a feeling, feel a sorrow or a pain and recognize that someone else is going through the same thing. That is such a gift. It makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger. It’s like my church, you know?”

Songs that talked about the end of her marriage, the loss of friends, the death of her father, all were healing, she says. “We all want to be connected … and music gives us that. I don’t think people are ever going to not need that.”

Still, the music business has changed so rapidly it’s hard to get the same rush it once provided. “Before streaming and the Internet, you anticipated that an album was coming out. You were in line and you bought it the very first day. Now when people hear a record is coming out, they go, ‘Oh, awesome. I’ll stream it and see if I like it.’ ”

A quick bite of a much larger piece of work isn’t enough, she says. “There’s a natural, emotional arc that comes with an album. You don’t get that with a single. I only have three minutes to hold your attention … and that’s a bit sad.”

Luckily, McLachlan says, she has never been one who relied on music sales to stay afloat. “Touring has always been my bread and butter. Only two records I made have actually broken even and made money.”
Taken as a whole, “they’re personal postcards of my emotional journey, where I’ve been. I’ve always been very open and honest, and people seem to respond to it.”

Frequently, fans tell the 47-year-old mother of two how her music captured their feelings under similar circumstances.

While fans may connect the dots and think she’s writing about her ex-husband, for example, “there’s enough ambiguity so they won’t know. On the record before the last one, people said, ‘Your poor ex-husband. Man, he’s getting raked over the coals. But it wasn’t necessarily about him — ‘You’re bad and I’m good’ — it was just where I was at. And I had a lot of people totally connect with it.”
McLachlan and Ashwin Sood, her ex, didn’t talk about the music — “I didn’t need his approval” — but he did come to one of her concerts and told her it was awesome. “We’re good friends. It’s seven years now (since their split) and we’re great parents together.”

While McLachlan’s latest album, “Shine On,” was inspired by the death of her father, it’s filled with upbeat music, proof she can share in many ways.

Often, she says, deadlines are essential to her writing process. “Did I mention I’m undisciplined?” she says. “I need that pressure. It puts a fire under your butt. Otherwise, I could sit here and pick away at something. Eventually, you’ve got to let it go.”

Daily, McLachan says, she’ll head to her piano and work on bits of songs. “Typically, the music comes first, then the words. I kind of know when I’m done with it when I start to feel like I’m going parallel or downhill instead of up. That’s when it’s, ‘OK, enough.’ Luckily, I have my own studio where I can leave things alone for a while. I’ll put it away for a month, come back at it with fresh ears, write a new part and figure out: ‘That’s how those two pieces fit together.’ ”

Eventually, she says, those bits and pieces become an album.

“Sometimes you have to shelve songs because you can’t get them to a point where they’re lyrically or melodically strong enough. But I keep picking.”

Other passions — like parenting two daughters, ages 12 and 7, running after-school music programs for children and supporting countless charities — often get in the way of writing.

“I wear a lot of hats. I probably have self-diagnosed ADD,” McLachlan says. “It’s hard for me to sequester myself in the mountains to write a record. I have had a lot of huge changes over the past five or six years that, in many ways, were devastating.

“For me, though, songwriting is such a gift. It’s so cathartic. It helps me figure out how I can navigate through it all.”