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" 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. "

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" I think, because of the kind of writer I am, I can't do it halfway. I can't do it without dedicating my entire life to it. I have to give it a hundred percent. "

Mary Gauthier

Writer

Life

Halfway

" What I really like is this salted calamari - with jalapenos on top. "

Mary Gauthier

Top

Really

" 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. "

" I don't ever want to tie a song in a little bow. Life doesn't work that way, and war doesn't ever work that way. "

" 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 write to make some sense of things that confuse me. The mechanics of my own heart are the most confusing I know about - and don't know about - and other people's are a bit confusing, too. "

Mary Gauthier

Heart

Know

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

" 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

" I think we're very much in a mystery here in this life and that artists try to pierce the mystery with their art. "

" 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. "

" Fundamentally, our job as songwriters is to sit down and listen. "

" Melody's like tweezers that go into the infection and pull out the wounded part. You can almost not stay silent in the face of a melody that matches your emotion. You feel seen. "

Mary Gauthier

Silent

Feel

" Art, when done well, creates empathy. "

" I don't have the experience of being in a war. "

" I have got my story. Adoptees rarely get our stories. We only know what we are told. I don't even have my story, really. My mother won't tell me. She won't tell me who my father is. She won't tell me the story of my birth. "

" I've come to terms with the fact that I'll probably be in therapy all of my life. "

" I think I'll always draw from being a person that doesn't know how to have a normal life, whatever a normal life is. "

" I got sober at 27 and started writing around 30 and started playing music in public around 32, 33. "

" I got issues. Boy, have I got issues. "

" I'm openly gay, and I've got a major label record deal in Nashville, and it happened when I was 42 years old. It's not supposed to happen that way. "

" War is hell. Sending young people to conflicts that are unwinnable and unresolvable - it puts them in a position where they're going to suffer. And yet their experience is that they're proud of their service, and they should be. Service freely rendered is a noble thing. "

" I'm grateful to songwriting and recovery to bringing me to a place of peace. "

Mary Gauthier

Peace

Place

" 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. "

" People in Ireland take in the whole song. After a long history of great singers and songwriters and poets, they are able to consume the entire song - not just the external; they go inside. "

" 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. "

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

" If I write for beauty and truth, the songs will find their way to me. Then, it's the songs that speak to the audience, and they can become part of the tribe that is into what I do. "

" Creating something beautiful out of pain helps ease the pain. So, that's kind of how I got to songwriting - quite honestly out of desperation. "

" I have such a good life. It's something I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams. "

" I've learned our soldiers are so much like everybody else. They're just put into an extreme situation. "

Mary Gauthier

Just

Much