Friday, November 28, 2014

“I will remember you. Will you remember me?” she sings sweetly and simply the girl who looks like she could be the simple girl next door who has comforted us with many of her simple songs lately. So, I am thankful for Sarah McLachlan.  I can’t believe that one of her hit songs called Building A Mystery was released 17 years ago. It still sounds so new. The Canadian singer who sold 40 Million records, is touring again. So if you want a romantic feeling with someone, why not see her on tour and sing along to so really personal and touching songs?

She had a divorce, a break with her long time manager and she lost her adoptive father who died of cancer in 2010 at the age of 80. So I guess you wouldn’t want to sing much after tragic things like that happen to you. Sarah is now 46 years old and I guess by the time we all reach her age we can not escape something tragic in our own lives too. She lives in Vancouver and built a recording studio on her property that did not get much use for awhile after tragedy struck. Some people need a glass of wine everyday, she needed to play her piano everyday but no inspiration struck her to write new songs for a long time.

It took 4 years since her father’s loss to recognize what she had lost and what that meant to her in order to move forward in life. Her new album called Shine On is dedicated in part to her father and took 4 years to produce, We don’t always feel unconditional love but when it comes to our children or our parents, we feel it and she sings about it. She grew up singing and playing piano and guitar and some expected her to be famous someday. Sarah did not let them down. She did it without having to change her image much either like most woman singers think they need to be half naked on stage shaking and dancing everything they got.

Sarah was signed to a record deal at age 19. Her 4th studio album called Surfacing would win her 2 Grammes and sell 16  Million copies. She is no rock star but those are rock star numbers. I love her song called Angel that people now sing everywhere from funerals to weddings. She wrote the song after hearing of the death of the keyboard player of The Smashing Pumpkins Band from a drug overdose. She wrote it in a day and a half.  So many people now connect with that song on so many levels especially when the song was used in a commercial for the ASPCA Animal Shelter. The advertisement raised $30 Million dollars for the shelter.
The success of the Surfacing Album made her want to organize a tour that would feature women artists. It was called Lilith Fair. The promoters told her a all female bill would never sell tickets, she did it anyway and in it’s three year run she drew 2 Million fans. It also raised money for her charitable foundation. She launched a after school program for inner city kids in Vancouver. After 9 years of renting space, with help from the city, she has a permanent location for her music school. Thanks Sarah for just being ordinary and filling our hearts with great songs.


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