Mary Gauthier, The Healing Power of Songwriting

autogenerated transcript

Mark Stinson, host: [: 00:00:00

And I'm just so pleased today to have Grammy nominated folk, Americana, country singer songwriter Mary Gauthier. Mary, welcome to the program.

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: Great to be with you today. Thanks for having me on. And

Mark Stinson, host: fellow Louisianan .

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: That's right. Born in New Orleans. Raised in Baton Rouge.

Mark Stinson, host: I love that. I was born in Shreveport.

Spent a lot of time in Baton Rouge and then moved to Chicago. But good to have those southern roots. Appreciate you coming on. It helps

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: with the food, doesn't it? We know how. Yeah, it does. It does. We know how to sniff out good

Mark Stinson, host: food, . And when you talk about inspiration, food is certainly

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: up there, isn.

and find great places on the [: 00:01:00

Mark Stinson, host: love that. Let's talk about your healing power of songwriting theme that you have.

The songs are so powerful in and of themselves, but I'm also thinking for our listeners about your creative process and how you really see that healing. Power. What is it about writing, especially songwriting that is so good for the.

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. That's why I wrote a book.

That's why the book is called Saved by a Song and it is the subtitle of the book that you're referencing, the Healing Power of Music in song. I just think that there's a big discussion around this. And it's hard to pin it down into one simple, quick answer, but I think there's people who understand that music and song can be far more than just entertainment, although it can be just entertainment and there ain't nothing wrong with that.

There's. Such [: 00:02:00

And and I didn't know, and my adoptive parents didn't know, but a year of being unmothered was very traumatizing. And I didn't know what was going on inside of me. I just knew that as a teenager, all hell broke loose. And I got into real trouble with drugs and alcohol. And I had a huge number of monkeys on my back that I didn't have names for and I couldn't make sense of.

se of all the things that my [: 00:03:00

Exactly. So music's a strong power. And It has properties that reach into the deepest levels of human consciousness. And I'm sure you and your listeners have seen snippets of people in LED stage Alzheimer's. Yes. Who are sung a song from their youth and they know, they don't know the name of their wife or husband of 50 years, but they know the words to love me tender.

and deep inside of us, even [: 00:04:00

It's certainly worthy of a podcast. It certainly.

Mark Stinson, host: Discuss it and you think about how the songs punctuate our life, and one reviewer called, talked about your music and said, you really made that emotional story of non-fiction. It is our life. These are the events that took place, but yet this songwriting, like you said, the meloy brings a different kind of emotion to it, doesn't it?

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: Yeah. Yeah. I and I, I think that it connects us when a song is really firing on all cylinders. It connects people and it brings us to an understanding of each other. , as a songwriter, the best thing you can say is, Hey, Mary, play my song. It's yay. They're claiming it because they feel as though it sees them.

art is all about is getting [: 00:05:00

Mark Stinson, host: And how did that experience of songwriting extend into book writing?

In other words, you were telling your story in a different medium, but you also wanted to share the stories not only behind the songs, but behind the process and your work with veterans. How did it your songwriting style or process extend to authoring?

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: I learned real quick after I got the book deal that writing a book and writing a song is two very different things.

Book writing is a lot, much longer process. And it's a much more challenging process for me because it's challenging in different ways and I had to learn how to write a book while writing a book. For me the challenge of a book is figuring out the framework. How is it going to be framed out?

that I ended up doing it was [: 00:06:00

And the cumulative effect of each song adding up over time is the story of my recovery and my healing. So in the beginning, the songs were making sense of my addiction and struggle. And and towards the end of the book, it's me working with veterans using music and song to help them with their P T S D.

So it's the deepening of my understanding of songwriting and the deepening of my ability to use it as a way of helping others heal. And it, the discussion gets bigger and bigger as the book goes on. , it becomes not just my personal trauma, but the trauma that the world inflicts on all of us.

took six years to write it. [: 00:07:00

Yes.

Mark Stinson, host: And you mentioned the work with veterans. They were obviously not maybe experienced or schooled in songwriting. How did that process help them through a healing

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: journey? Yeah, that's a good question. No, the vets that I've worked with are not songwriters. They just carry story. And so when I sit down and write with the veteran, I ask them how they're doing and when did they serve?

e build confidence and their [: 00:08:00

It's a profound experience to hear your story sung back to you. It takes it out of a deeply personal experience and puts it into the context of a group, and suddenly you are not you're observing. Instead of living the story, you become the observer of the story. And that little bit of distance is where the healing can start.

What happens is you start to, to see that, that instead of. It being something that you're powerless over as the storyteller. You start to have agency and power being given. The microphone, the pen is an act of courage and power.

Mark Stinson, host: Such a good perspective that power. Yeah. And you mentioned teaching the process of songwriting.

[: 00:09:00

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: It can be taught, absolutely. Yeah. You can't teach talent, but you can teach songwriting.

rself to this craft and art. [: 00:10:00

Meaning you gotta scare yourself with what you say. You gotta say things that you don't feel comfortable saying, you gotta take down. The protection and get vulnerable, and that's when it starts to get

Mark Stinson, host: good. It's so interesting because you think about people talking about their process and they have folders and files full of napkins and song lyrics and magazine articles.

They've torn out and, half lyrics but not many people say, I need to get vulnerable. I need to drop the curtain of protection and let those stories come.

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: Who wants to do that? . Who wants to walk around the town square in your underwear? , nobody. But that's the job. E, even if it's a happy love song.

erdeen, Scotland, and in the [: 00:11:00

But inevitably I am forever and always will drawing draw straight men about my. Who are like me in so many ways, mystified by women, can't make sense of why that marriage didn't work. Don't understand what went wrong there. That's me. They reflect my heart and my songs speak to their heart. And I was up in Aberdeen and I remember it was a truck driver up there, they call the trucks, Loris.

. So he was a Lori driver of an Aberdeen and he. Thickest Scottish, bro. But he shouted. He tilted his head and shouted out, show us your hearts man. He show us your heart, Christ sake. Show us your heart. And what he was saying is, show me my heart. See, this is how it works. You get vulnerable in, what you do is you reveal your listeners to themself.

Of course you're revealing [: 00:12:00

Mark Stinson, host: And you have to work at it's, I i's think about, think it's easy, some of the obstacles you must face.

And in some other interviews you've talked about, you don't always get what you deserve. You keep working at it and you overcome these obstacles. How do you do that on a sort of day-to-day? There's gotta be days where you say, this just isn't working for me. Do you step back from it?

Do you push through it? How do you face it? The

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: obstacles? In

Mark Stinson, host: songwriting? Yes. Yes. Or in the business of music.

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: Yeah. Songs come in their own time. And I, I I use the analogy of songwriters being a midwife. So having been in the presence of a midwife I watched her work and what she does is spend a whole lot of time sitting on a little stool at the foot of the bed waiting for the baby to come.

There's [: 00:13:00

And so they come when they come and not every one of 'em needs to be played on stage. Not all my songs will the world hear. I, I. Be the I wanna be the decider as to whether or not the song is worthy of bringing to the public. Not every song I write is that good. I was on the phone this morning with Rodney Corrall, he said, Mary, and probably about, I think my batting average like two outta 10 that's about right.

one if there's seven in the [: 00:14:00

I think there's a lot of folks who think you're just supposed to play everything you write, and I've never felt that way.

Mark Stinson, host: It's very helpful. Let's switch gears a little bit to the tour and, there's a lot of cliches about life on the road and you are definitely playing some great venues in some great cities.

What part of the creative processes, the touring? Is it just to get the workout and meet the people, do the promotion or do you also gained some inspiration from some of these places and people and cities?

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: Oh yeah. You get all kind of inspiration going from town to town. And meeting people, seeing new things, being in a different mindset.

There, there is no rut, we are not doing the same thing over and over again. It's different every day. , I think that touring is a part of it for me, but of course I'm in Nashville here and a lot of songwriters have never toured in their life and they don't want to, they don't even wanna get on stage ever.

They just [: 00:15:00

But I like it even as I get older and it gets harder. I try not to whine about it too much, cuz I know I love it. my knees don't love it, . I don't think that that's gonna get any better. But my, my, my heart and soul really resonate well. I'm just, I have this. It's like Willie, on the road again, I just can't wait to get on the road again.

And he ain't gonna stop. He's doing his 90th birthday on the road. Love

hinking somebody may want to [: 00:16:00

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: No, never have every song I've ever gotten cut. They found it somehow and they decided, they liked it enough to record it. I didn't. I didn't. I never wrote a song thinking about. Who else might wanna record it? That's just unknowable to me. What is in someone else's heart at any given moment?

Hell, my own heart's unknowable to me. Most of the time. I gotta be digging around my own unknowns to get to something good. I can't jump through. The crazy fields of Nashville and figure out what's in, I don't know Kenny Chesney's heart right now. I have no idea. I just try to write the truest, most honest, vulnerable song I can and hope someone else enjoys it or sees themself in it.

But I, I don't do, I can't write for a marketplace cuz I don't know what the marketplace even is.

nson, host: No. Makes sense. [: 00:17:00

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: Yeah, no, I put out a record in 2018 with written with veterans, and then I put out a book in 2021, and then I put out a record in 22, and I'm gonna slow down a bit right now and. I think what I need to be doing right now is working with songwriters. I'm coaching songwriters online. I just got off with someone I'm working with in Zurich right now and I'm holding workshops online and workshops in person right now.

and a book I don't, I think [: 00:18:00

The art form to others and help them to reach the highest level of their ability. And then, after a while, probably 24 or something, I'll start looking at, I'm always writing songs. I just don't have anything right now. That looks like a project coming together. I'm teaching a lot and I love that.

I really do. And I'm on the run too, so that's Of course.

Mark Stinson, host: Yeah. And I'll publish the links to your website and to your tour dates and the book and so forth in the show notes so everybody can access those. Mary, as you think about let's imagine there's somebody listening right now who's at that stage where they probably have some talent, but they really need to open that heart that you've been talking about.

What insight or advice from your experience could you give them to really access those emotional tugs?

on't know if I can say this. [: 00:19:00

You, you, there is a reluctance to be vulnerable because we don't wanna be uh, We don't wanna be thrown out of the group or shamed or hung out to dry in the public square or canceled in some way because we said something that was disturbing to people. I feel strongly that that it's the brave songs that connect.

It's when I'm most vulnerable that people see themself in my songs. So I encourage my writers to go deeper and deeper and get to that place where they're shaken. And that's the vein of gold. That's where things get good. Songs are what feelings sound like. So you gotta make me feel, for me to love your song, you gotta make me.

how you feel, or B, tell me [: 00:20:00

Mark Stinson, host: work and let's get to work.

And somehow when you do tell the story, somebody out there in the audience, a listener says, I've been through that too, or that really connects with me. So you're not alone.

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: That's right. That's how it

Mark Stinson, host: works. Love that. Yeah. Mary, can't thank you enough for sharing your experiences and your.

Mary Gauthier, singer-songerwriter: Mark, it's pleasure talking with you today. Thanks for having me

Mark Stinson, host: on. Yeah, and all the best with the tour and future projects. Thank you, listeners. My guest has been singer songwriter folk Americana, country music writer, and Grammy nominated Mary Gauthier. You can find all the information on the links in the show notes, and we'll share more information as we go.

deas and gets get their work [: 00:21:00

See you next time.