The Michigan Review

Sarah McLachlan: Breathtaking

by Robert Wood

There is a star rising from the North, specifically, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and it has already begun to spread light upon the previously­decaying landscape of popular music. She has been on the rise since her discovery in 1985 and the release of her frist heavenly creation, Touch, in 1988. Sarah McLachlan, while generally considered a spokesperson for women's music, has really revitalized the entire pop music scene with ehr intimate, thought­provoking lyrics and sensual, angelic voice.

While Touch remained a bit of an underground hit, her next relase, Solace, brought her into the mainstream scene. Her music really started turning heads in the U.S. with 1994's Fumbling Toward Ecstacy. When Surfacing was released last year, her influence in the music world could not be denied. She was at the top.

For those of her more recent fans, and for those who have yet to hear anything more than is played on the radio: the more you hear, the more you will become amazed at the unbeilevable talent this woman possesses. Those of you who are "Fumblers" (equivalent to Metallica's "metallifans" or the Grateful Dead's "Deadheads"), and who know her work and life, might agree that she has the kind of lyrical and vocal gifts that do not come along more than once or twice in a generation. The reason her work and life were even mentioned in the same sentence is also the reason her music is so enrapturing: they are inseparably entertwined. Her song, "Possession," from Fumbling, is a perfect, if somewhat disturbing, example. For three years she was stalked by a computer programmer from Ottawa. Eventually she was forced to get a restraining order against him, after which she wrote "Possession." This was not the end of the story, however. The stalker filed a lawsuit against McLachlan regarding the song, claiming "breach of confidence." The suit was dismissed, and the man subsequently committed suicide in December, 1994. In an interview in Rolling Stone three years later, Ms. McLachlan adds, "And this one person wasn't the only guy ... there were a lot of letters from other people saying the same kind of thing ... Writing the song 'Possession' was very therapeutic."

The hauntingly beautiful "Hold On" was inspired by a documentary about a woman whose fiance had been diagnosed HIV positive. This woman watched and cared for her husband (they married) as his body deteriorated, and mourned his eventual passing. The compassion McLachlan felt for this woman, and all those touched by the modern plague of AIDS, is starkly evident in this song. Each of McLachlan's songs seems to be another window through which one cannot help but get a personal glance into the singer's soul.

Sarah McLachlan was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1968. She is the adopted youngest child of expatriate Americans Jack and Dorice McLachlan. According to an October 29, 1997 article in People, her parents convinced her to enroll in the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1986, where she was interested in jewelry design. That same year, an acquaintance pointed out that Mclachlan looked a lot like her friend Judy Kaines. Sarah got a shock when she and Kaines found out that Kaines was actually Sarah's biological mother; now, the two women see each other at Christmas and throughout the year.

A recent conversation with Review Music Editor Chris Hayes brought up an idea that everyone who has ever wanted to meet her seems to have had the chance; they just want to give her a hug. That's all my girlfriend wants. That's all the guy who ran up on stage during her April 7 concert at the MSU Auditorium wanted. He got one, too, just before a body guard leapt on him and draggedhim off stage. The only person who usually gets to do the hugging is her drummer and husband, Ashwin Sood. The two tied the knot in Jamaica in February of 1997. Sood recalls in a July 28, 1997 article from Macleans, "Half an hour before we got married, we were naked in the ocean. And half an hour later, we were naked and back in the ocean. It couldn't hve been better."

After her current tour winds down, don't bet on a new album right away. McLachlan stated in a 1997 MuchMusic special that she and her husband are "going to try and have a baby. I'm almost 30, you know, the clock's ticking big time."

When McLachlan created and headlined the Lilith Fair Tour, which covered 35 dates last summer and is slated for a second round of dates this summer, she was relieved to have finally had the clout within the music industry to make a positive stride for women. In the December 1997 Rolling Stone interview, she recalled some of the skepticism she encountered when trying to organize her 1993 tour with Paula Cole. "I got a lot of flak from promoters who said, 'You don't want to put two women on the same bill.' And I thought, 'Oh, that's ridiculous.'"

Because McLachlan's name was getting bigger, and she was commanding more money per show than ever, she could also command a bit more respect from her promoters. "... I had the power and control where I was able to say, 'I'm going to play with whoever I want to.'"

When Lilith Fair eclipsed Lollapalooza, H.O.R.D.E., and R.O.A.R. this past summer, the glass ceiling appeared to be cracking a bit. Sarah McLachlan was the only constant headliner of the tour, which also featured Tracy Chapman, Jewel, Suzanne Vega, and Paula Cole. It was clear from the beginning of Lilith that this wasn't going to be a man­bashing festival. McLachlan was even glad to see a few men in the audience, as she stated in a September 1997 Rolling Stones piece.

While most summer rock tours accepted sponsorship from alcohol and tobacco companies, along with automakers and soft drink corporations, Lilith Fair took a different route. According to the June 9, 1997 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Lilith Fair's sponsors were carefully picked by McLachlan because of their charitable donations to women's causes and to repreent categories such as "learning" and "wellness." Ann Arbor's own Borders Bookstore chain was chosen to sponsor the learning category, and Nine West was chosen for wellness because of its monetary donations to breast cancer organizations. "Socially conscious businesses [were] what we wanted. No child labor, no animal testing, but community oriented." According to the Journal, Tommy Hilfiger was apparently interested in sponsoring the tour, but Lilith declined. The tour organizers wanted several symbolic backers, instead of a "Tommy Tour."

Looking at this policy from a strictly financial point of view, one wonders exactly who Ms. McLachlan thinks she is. Yet, when pop culture and her fan base are considered, she knows exactly who she is: she is the one on top.

Regarding the April 7 concert mentioned earlier, a review of it was published in the Michigan Daily the following Friday. The reviewer suggested that McLachlan had "sold out" and prehaps wasn't as powerful a preformer as she used to be, but had settled for "mesmerizing" the audience. The previous paragraphs should indicated that McLachlan is anything but a sell­out. To throw such accusatory language around is bad form, and to accuse someone of compromising their artistic integrity, especially someone as talented and soulful as Sarah McLachlan, is completely without class and unfairly judgemental. She is finally hit it big in the U.S. after ten years in the business. She put in the hours and hard work to do it all just right.

I was at the concert myself. The reason people were a little sedate during some of her slower ballads was that the MSU Auditorium was poorly ventilated, and had a room temperature of about 85 degrees. Ms. McLachlan is also a folk and soft rock singer, which means that her songs are going to be a bit slower than say, Bush, Hole, or some other alternative excuse for music. Sarah McLachlan performed almost all the songs on both her most recent albums, and about half of Solace. She played a two­hour set without missing a note, and came back for two encores. She did all this knowing she had another show in Toledo the next night. She gave everything her impressive set of pipes should have given, and then some. A few thousand other people at the show had an unbelievable time, and this reporter will not soon forget the experience.

Sarah McLachlan's star has risen, and the pop music scene is finally revolving around its most deserving sun in some time. MR

This article was published in the 22 April 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 16, Number 10).
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