MARY GAUTHIER: FROM ME TO ALL OF US (THROUGH BOOKS)

  We tried to create a contact with Mary Gauthier and we were lucky. With the help of Mark Spector, her management (thank you Mark…) we share some mails with questions and answers. A digital way for a human interview: strange, funny, easy. This is the simply conversation with Mary about Between daylight and dark. Enjoy it. And send your comments…

Walter Gatti – Hi Mary, could you tell us if you feel your songs only like “your expressions” or do you think to be voice for all the people that live between “daylight and dark”?
Mary Gauthier – When I write a song, I am writing it from a place in me that I hope is universal, a place that goes through me, into all of us. I hope to speak for myself, but also for all who have experienced the things I write about. The deepest truth inside me is universal, the most intimate part of me is the most universal part. All artists know this, and we try to pull from there. 

WG – Could you explain how do you work for a record? What is the beginning of a song: words or music? How was important Joe Henry for this “Daylight and dark”?
MG – I write the words and the music at the same time. I wrote 20 or more songs for this record, only 10 made the cut. Joe Henry was very important for this record, he hired the band and gave them the freedom to do what they do best, play the music the way they feel it. 

WG – I feel very often great links between your songs and literature. Song like Can’t find way home remind me James Lee Burke and his novel Jesus out to the sea. In other moment I think about Flannery O’Connor or Faulkner… The question is: are you a reader? Do you like literature?
MG – I just read James lee Burke’s new book Tin Roof Blow Down, and I have his collection of short stories Jesus Out to Sea. I am a huge fan of his. I have been to Flannery O’Conner’s house, and I am a huge fan of hers as well. These two writers have influenced me absolutely. I read all the time and I am a word person by nature, I enjoy emerging myself in words and working through many books a month. I think that writers should read. Every good writer that i know reads constantly. 

WG – Very often I feel a religious power in your songs (Pray without words, only for an example….), like in Van Morrison or NickCave or in Leonard Cohen or in Bob Dylan…
MG – I am not a religious person, but i am a spiritual person. Religion does not speak to me, but the words of Christ speak to me, the words of Buddha speak to me. I know that there is a creative force behind what i do that is not me, and it is connected to the creation of life itself. I cannot understand it, but I know that it is there. So in that sense, i am spiritual. I love Dylan and Cohen, two of my favorite writers of all time. 

WG – You musical influences: tell me, if you can, what kind of music do you hear today.….
MG – I read much more than I listen to music these days…  WG – Thank you Mary….