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Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Classic Replay | Music Saved Me with Singer-Songwriter Mary Gauthier
00:19:21
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- [00:00]
A
Music Saved Me Musicians on Call is a charity that is perfectly aligned with the mission of this podcast, delivering the healing power of music since 1999. Why not become a volunteer or supporter by going to musiciansoncall.org we're dealing with alchemy here.
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Alchemy is an ancient form of magic, but it can be explained in some ways. I would say maybe turning coal into a diamond is alchemy. There is a thing that happens in music and song that is hard to explain. Why does a sad song make you feel happy? That is taking darkness and turning it into light. That's alchemy.
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A
This podcast is called Music Saved Me and on each episode we'll look at a musician. We'll delve into their story, their deep connection to music. We'll talk with their fans, everyday people with their own story to tell about how music has saved them in challenging times. Today we have the privilege of talking with a remarkable artist and author. Mary Gaucher is best known for her soul stirring songs that have touched the hearts of so many.
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C
She's not only a talented singer, songwriter, but also the author of the captivating book Saved by a Song and how.
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A
Perfect for her to join us today. In this episode, we'll explore the incredible journey of this acclaimed musician, her profound connection to songwriting, and the powerful tales of redemption and transformation that have shaped her artistry.
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C
Mary, welcome to Music Saved Me. It's so great to have you here.
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B
Oh, I'm excited to be here.
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C
In your book Saved by a Song, you talk about the profound impact that music has had on your life. Can you share with us a specific moment when you realized that music saved you?
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B
Well, honestly, I think it's been more of a process than an event. But there came a point as a songwriter as I took it more and more seriously and decided to really dedicate my life to it as a person who came to it later in life. It wasn't my first career. It wasn't even. I didn't take it in as a career actually. It was something I did on the side after I got sober and I began to take it more and more seriously. So it's my second career and I guess there was a point, a couple of records in where I realized, my goodness, this is more than more than what it looks like on the surface. For me, it became purpose, it became a way of processing the world and my life became a way of connecting and building empathy, building bridges. I'm all about bridges, not walls. I think that my awareness of the power of song is Continuing magnitude of the power of song is amazing to me. What he can do. I was just at a thing I'd never done before. It was a storytelling festival, and somebody was wearing a shirt, and he said, the shortest distance between two strangers is a story well told. Beautiful. I think as a songwriter, I would certainly agree. And I might say the shortest distance between two strangers is a story. Song well told.
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C
Absolutely. Absolutely. You were just speaking of the power of music, how tremendous it is. I have to ask you. It sounds a little weird, but I don't think so. Do you feel that music has supernatural healing powers?
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B
Well, yes. I would characterize it like this. We're dealing with alchemy here. Alchemy is an ancient form of magic, but it can be explained in some ways. I would say maybe turning coal into a diamond is alchemy. It can be looked at scientifically. The pressure, the pressure, the pressure. The pressure transforms coal into diamonds. There is a thing that happens in music and song that is hard to explain. Why does a sad song make you feel happy? What is it that this art form brings that allows some of the worst things that ever happened to a songwriter to be sung and in that interaction or in that action, turned into something beautiful that other people will thank us for singing? That is taking darkness and turning it into light. That's alchemy. And if you want to take it to another level of discussion and call it supernatural, I'm not gonna say no to it. It's transformative.
- [05:36]
C
Your songs deal with deeply personal and emotional themes. How do you navigate that? It's a fine line between sharing your own personal experiences and also making your music and songs relatable to a wide audience.
- [05:51]
B
Good point. Here's what I teach and here's what I understand. The personal is pretty boring. It's just my little life, my little diary, my little comings and goings and interactions with people that went well or poorly. Nobody cares about my personal. I mean, I'm. I mean, we care about celebrities. Personal, just as gawkers. But. But here's where I can get people interested is if I go two or three flights down from the personal and enter the deeply personal. I think this is where we all meet. We all meet at what it means to be human. And that deeply personal reality is not something we talk about at cocktail parties. Sometimes. We never even talk about it with our family. And the deeply personal is where we intersect in this life. And I think great artists articulate that, and people find each other there. That is what's interesting. I always Say to my students that songs are great places to tell your secrets. Not personal secrets, not who kissed who or who cheated on who, but what you truly genuinely feel about what's transpiring in your life and in the world, and your confusion and your alarm and your empathy and your own day to day experiences of life. In a way, it's where we go in and take our guard down. You know, it requires vulnerability.
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C
It does. And sharing with people, even if it's not your specific story, it makes them feel that they're not the only one.
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B
That's it. That's the job. The job of the songwriter is to get the listener to go, mary, play my song. They take ownership of the story because it is their story. One of my songwriting heroes in and a man I traveled with for a bit was a songwriter from Texas named Guy Clark. And he used to say, look, we're all living the same life. We just hit the marks at different times, at different points. What it means to be human is true for all humans. We share the human condition.
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C
So true. Many people, obviously, as we're talking about this, turn to music during difficult times in their life. I have. Everyone I know has at some point in time. Can you tell us, I think you just did a song or a particular artist that has been a saving grace for you in your life.
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B
Oh, God, there's hundreds.
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C
Maybe a few.
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B
Yeah, there's hundreds different times in my life. So many. And you wouldn't expect, like I would say, Iggy Pop and the Carpenters.
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C
Interesting.
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B
You wouldn't expect that from a folks like me. There's a time Green on Red, Iggy Pop, the Violent films, Lou Reed. I'm listening and holding on for dear life. There's a time Karen Carpenter's vocals resonated so deeply something in her voice. I felt her. I think her tragedy was in her voice. And it resonated her. Her strength and her situation. She was a woman trapped in a time that was very, very hard to be a woman, much less a woman drummer. You know, she broke a lot of stereotypes. And I think that the pain was in her voice. It resonated for me. So I went through a lot with the Carpenters and those early punk bands, you know, the Clash. The anger of some of the Iggy stuff in the early days. And I always, always, always turn to John Prine as well. His sense of humor, his ability to see the light inside the darkness. So many Leonard Cohen songs, Bob Dylan songs. Bruce Springsteen really has been an important artist for me. And then people in My own genre, you know, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Emmy Lou Harris. The younger ones that are coming up now speak to me too. Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson. They're a lot younger than me, but they're really resonating. The list is endless. It goes on and on and on, and we hold on. I hold on to these songwriters and their songs with dear life, sometimes, for dear life, sometimes.
- [10:54]
C
And still to this day, you'll tap back into that when needed for yourself.
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B
Yeah, Toby Keith's got a song I can't stop listening to. Don't Let the Old Man In.
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C
It's the best. I love him. Oh, my goodness.
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B
As he battles stomach cancer and fights for his health and his life. This is a saying that he picked up on, that he wrote a song about. And it's a Clint Eastwood like, hey, man, you're 91 years old. How the hell do you still make movies? And Clint said, don't let the old man in. And it's resonant for me. You know, I'm 61 years old, but sometimes the old man or the old woman comes knocking, and you got to answer the door and go, we're not doing this today. That song, I'm. Repeat, repeat, repeat. How old would you be if you didn't know the day you were born? What a line.
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C
So powerful.
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B
What a line. What a song. It's not just a song. It's life, instruction.
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C
And one other little bit of advice is just taking down all the mirrors in the house. Tell me, Mary, describe songwriting. Why is it a therapeutic process?
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B
I like that distinction. You know, a lot of folks say, well, you're doing therapy. Like, no, I'm not doing therapy. Not with songwriting. I do therapy with my therapist. But songwriting is therapeutic in that it helps process. There's a processing that happens when I write a song that helps bring some clarity, but it doesn't free me from having the need for therapeutic help. And when I do have that need, and I've had it for many, many, many years, I'll speed dial my therapist and get back in there. I don't do it as often as I did, but she's there, and I know her number. But the process of writing a song is trying for me, trying to find clarity. And I think maybe that's what therapy is as well, is looking for clarity for sanity and reality and making decisions based on solid perceptions. You know, it's the misperception of the world and the misperception of what's happening that creates dysfunction and sometimes mental illness and so the clarifying process of songwriting for me is very therapeutic. Now, not everybody writes that way, and they don't see this art form as. As a way of doing that. You know, there's so many different approaches, and everybody's welcome, and you can do it your own way. I'm not endorsing or saying this is how it should be done. I'm just saying this is how I do it.
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C
Your song Mercy now has resonated with countless listeners. Tell us about the inspiration behind the powerful song and why you think it is connected with so many people on such a deep level.
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B
You know, that continues to amaze me. A song that I wrote in 2002, People come up to me every night when I play with tears in their eyes and say, that song. That song, it keeps reinventing itself. That song, it keeps reactivating itself. I wrote it in such a way that it didn't intrinsically get caught in political events of the year 2002. I think it's a good example of getting past the personal into the deeply personal so that it didn't attach itself to the specific going ons of that time. But what inspired it was the specific going ons of that time. I knew enough about songwriting at that point to know that I wanted this to be a bigger song than. Than what it would be if I said exactly what I was referencing. It was inspired by the US response to 9 11. It was inspired by the Spotlight report reports on the rampant child sexual abuse in the parishes of Boston, the horrific number of priests in handcuffs being arrested for child abuse. I lived in Boston at that time. It was mortifying. At the time, the current dictator of North Korea's father was testing nuclear weapons. It was inspired by that, but I didn't reference that that was what was happening if you open the newspaper. But what I tried to write about, and I think I successfully did, was what was going on inside of me as a response to that.
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C
Yeah, I was. I Just. To let you know, I'm from Boston as well, and I was there during that time. So that was amazing music and song and. And just a wonderful thing to put out there in terms of being able to help people figure out how to deal with all of this stuff. It's just. It was that. It was an unbelievable time.
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B
It was an unbelievable time. And what I was doing, and I didn't know I was doing it, was trying to help me deal with it.
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C
Yeah. Yeah. But don't they always say a lot of times when you try to figure stuff out for yourself, you don't even realize that it's gonna resonate with so many people. Which leads me to my next question. You had mentioned about mercy now and people still come to you and with tears in their eyes. It has such a unique ability, music, to bring people together. How does it make you feel when you see that impact on your audience while you're performing or even after, when they come to you after? How does that make you feel?
- [16:58]
B
I feel grateful. I feel deeply connected to purpose. I feel as though I'm one of the lucky ones that figured out. It took a while. I didn't figure it out first off, right out of the shoot, but I figured out what to do with my life that I was put here to do, and I'm doing it. And it's a real gift to know what to do with your life and how to do it and then to do it. That really makes me feel, I guess, grateful. Overall, the overarching experience of my songs resonating with listeners in me is gratitude because it took a lot of courage to walk away from my restaurants at 40 years old and become a songwriter. It took a lot of courage for me to say, you know what? I did that. And now I'm going to do this. And it may or may not work, but I'm going to try. And I've got to try. I don't want to be on my deathbed going, I wish I'd have tried. So I gave it my all and somehow I crossed the threshold somewhere over the. Over the first four, five, six records that gave me this sense that I get to do this as long as I want to, that they're not going to take it away from me, that it's working. And the goal was not to be a star, but the goal was to be able to support and sustain myself by writing songs. And that has worked out to be true. I manifested that and I don't need more. I have enough. I'm grateful for that, too. I'm not always grabbing for more. I'm really, really happy with where it's taken me and what I do.
- [18:44]
C
Well, we are so happy for you and grateful that you joined us today to share your story about music and how it's impacted your life. And thank you for your selflessness of sharing your music with the world and helping them during their time as well. You don't mention it enough, but you do make a big difference for a lot of people and you're very humble about it. And thank you so much for coming on. Music saved me Mary. And good luck with everything you're doing in the future. And I hope our paths cross again.
- [19:18]
B
Hey, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.