Featured artist: MARTHA WAINWRIGHT
The
publicity image steals our love of ourselves as we are
and offers it back to us for the price of the product.
John Berger
Martha
Wainwright pours herself into song writing like Van Gogh poured
himself into self-portraits. The more I listen, the more I become
convinced that had Vincent been exposed to Martha’s magnificent
music, he would be alive and well today -- ‘singing in the
rain.’
At the
ancient age of 28, Martha has just released her first album entitled
Martha Wainwright. Why did it take her so long? Because
sometimes that’s how long it takes -- and not because Canadians
hibernate six months every winter. For the record, we don’t
hibernate, but ‘suffer’ (exponentially) our climate
gladly.
Martha’s
music is about Martha’s war – which is the war we’re
all waging against the imposition of cultural values that turn
us against ourselves, that insist we spend our lives trying to
measure up instead of becoming who we are, and coerce us to judge
ourselves according to standards that gladly sacrifice what remains
of our individuality on the altar of the ideal-self.jpg proposed
by TV and ad culture. But
what do you do if you don’t fit the mould, if you just can’t
cut it?
If you’re
gifted like Martha Wainwright, you take the negative by the neck
and rework it into track #1, track #2, track #3, or for as long
as it takes until the person you see when you look into the mirror
finally says: I’m OK with that because that’s who
I am.
And that’s
why we’re listening.
Martha’s
lyrics are a gift of harrowing honesty, delivered in a voice that
is just as likely to falter as soar, where the constant struggle
against self-doubt is redeemed by the sheer beauty of her singing
and song writing.
Listen
to Martha sing the very haunting THESE
FLOWERS
