Saved by a Song

June 1, 2021

Singer-songwriter Gauthier's (b. 1962) intimate, riveting memoir is made up of 13 chapters, each headed by lyrics she wrote or that are meaningful to her. She discusses the basics of the songwriter's craft, focusing on the why and the how, with stories from her own career--from her earliest attempts through her Grammy-nominated 2018 album Rifles & Rosary Beads. Accounts of her struggles with addiction, her violent home life, and the realization that she was a lesbian are cleverly interwoven with a series of flashbacks to her teenage years. Gauthier writes with a light, ironic touch, and sprinkles quotes from a variety of esteemed folk and pop/rock musicians throughout, to good effect. Including a streaming file or a disc with the book would have been of great benefit, as readers will want to hear these songs after reading about them. VERDICT This emotional narrative will leave readers spent, but rooting for Gauthier to prevail. Her lyrics dig deeply into the human condition, and her explanations leave little room for complacency.--Barry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2021
An acclaimed singer/songwriter digs soulfully into her craft. A great song can capture time and place, conjure elaborate fictions, and convey deep, emotional truths. This collection unveils how a master managed many of her most memorable pieces, like a magician revealing all of her tricks. It's no surprise that Gauthier (b. 1962), best known for the moving folk songs of Mercy Now and her concept album about her adoption, The Foundling, is an authoritative writer. Though the details of her life that inform her stunningly straightforward song "I Drink" are interesting to read, knowing them doesn't really magnify the song's impact once you've heard it. However, when the author shows her editing process for the song, making the symbolism stronger and switching points of view, it's a lesson that's hard to forget. Gauthier brings that sharp honesty to a variety of songs and the topics that inspired them, whether it was her decision to leave the restaurant business to become a songwriter, her knack of picking the wrong women for relationships, or losing friends to the AIDS crisis. She also brings it to the artistic process. "Storytellers have power; they are not voiceless victims," writes the author. "In a song we are given the authority to be the writer of the story instead of the paper it is written on." She explains how she uses that authority to help military veterans take control of their experiences and turn them into something useful by helping them express themselves as songwriters. "There is something sacred in the electricity that surges between song and songwriter," writes Gauthier. "Lightning rod in hand, I follow flashes of ideas and inspiration. My work is to be a receiver." She does that work well as a songwriter and now as an author. A powerful memoir that says as much about Gauthier and her eventful, trailblazing life as it does about her music.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from June 1, 2021
Songwriting is a calling, but it is also a mystery, even to someone as accomplished as the self-professed troubadour Mary Gauthier. She insists that her best writing is often done in a "kind of trance." She maintains that a song can change the world by creating empathy in one person at a time. Hers is no ordinary book about the craft of songwriting but rather a thoughtful meditation by one of the finest practitioners around on what makes a song matter and the hard lessons she's learned. Gauithier describes her bout with the bottle in painful detail (she has been sober since July 13, 1990) as well as encounters with stage fright, which is a different kind of agony but also excruciating. Learning how to write and perform her own songs, she says, was a process similar to coming out. But first she had to figure out how to reduce her songs to their essence. When it's done right, Gauthier says, a song is a "snapshot" of the songwriter's soul. She even gives it a name, "complex simplicity." Some songs "became a road map, an anchor, a prayer." This is a treasure of a book as well as a love letter to songs and songwriters and the people who listen to them.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.