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" Being in recovery for a lot of years now, I've worked with a lot of people who've gotten sober and sat with a lot of folks who are suffering. Bearing witness is a really underrated thing; it's a big damn deal. "

Mary Gauthier

People

Recovery

Suffering

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" I learn something every time I go to work with a veteran. Every single time. "

Mary Gauthier

Single

Learn

" The job of the artist is to go to the places where most other people are embarrassed to go to. And show it. "

Mary Gauthier

Job

Artist

" Songs bring us into connection with each other. When they resonate, when we're in resonance, singing together, we become one for that 3 1/2 or four minutes the song lasts. It takes away that isolated loneliness that modern life is so full of. "

Mary Gauthier

Together

Life

" Recovery stabilized me; songwriting gave me a purpose. "

Mary Gauthier

Songwriting

Purpose

" I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song. "

" Music had always been a kind of anchor for me. But I didn't write my first song till I was 35. "

" I would make a terrible soldier, because I don't follow orders. "

Mary Gauthier

Because

Terrible

" I try not to eat cakes, but sugar screams my name. "

" I did not know that if a member of a family serves, the whole family serves. I did not know that the spouses of our service members carry such a heavy load. "

" I keep seeing the headline on articles that says something like 'Mary Gauthier Helping Our Veterans.' It's troubling - and it's condescending. Whatever I'm doing as a songwriter to help them tell their stories, they're giving it back to me double, triple, quadruple. "

Mary Gauthier

Doing

Back

" Songs have been my greatest teachers and continue to be really important in my life. "

" I think each veteran's soul has something that it needs to say. I know from my own personal traumas, it's very hard to know what that is. But when I'm watching someone else struggle, it's not as confusing for me, 'cause it's not my struggle, so I can help identify that. "

" I feel as though I came to music with something to say. It wasn't like that when I was younger. I didn't have the ability to articulate what it was I wanted to say. "

" I long for real and true connection. It has been the theme of all the songs in my whole life. "

" I've always been drawn to the hard story, the trauma, because I think art can turn it around. "

" I was in the orphanage in New Orleans until I was almost a year old. I don't think I ever got held by my mama, so that was completely and utterly traumatic. I think it was trauma from the first breath, and I think I've spent my whole life trying to heal from that trauma. So it shaped my brain. "

" I felt my whole life like I didn't have a family, and I needed one. So I had to build one, and you build one with faith, hope, and the healing power of love - or you end up the 'Unabomber.' That's the choice. "

" A lot of time, if you spend too much time in Nashville, songwriters get caught up in charts and numbers and the music business politics. "

Mary Gauthier

You

Time

" People who have been through trauma, their souls are hurting. "

" I don't play everything I write. I mean, everything I write is not that good. I bring out into the world the ones I think that are really worthy of an audience's attention. "

" When I became a songwriter, it was out of some sort of desperation. I needed to create something. I had to latch on to something, and the guitar was what I grabbed. "

" I'm a big fan of Lou Reed, and I do a lot of talking through songs. It's more effective with my vocal limitations and also more powerful to slightly sing sometimes. It depends on the emotion, but I'm never going to try to compete with great singers. "

" I always knew I was going to make a record called 'The Foundling.' Since I picked up a guitar, I knew it. "

Mary Gauthier

Knew

Since

" When you see validation for a life's work and dedication, it's a beautiful day. "

" We can't see ourselves very clearly. This I learned as a songwriter. I'm forever trying to figure out what my own truth is. "

" When I finally got sober, I moved towards what I might have been if I hadn't been destroying myself when I was young. "

" When I first got sober, I hadn't read anything for six or seven years. I didn't have even that much focus. "

" There's an ocean of misunderstanding. It's called the civilian-military divide. I had a lot to learn about our military - who they are, what burdens they carry. "

" I think it's a stereotype that soldiers don't talk, because my experience is that they will talk if they are met with empathy and no judgment. "

" What I'm finding is there's an awful lot about adoption and relinquishment and the complicated nature of family that we, as human beings, haven't been able to have a real discussion about yet without a lot of censorship. "