For her fourth album, All The Hours I Have Left To Tell You Anything, Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah MacDougall gathered the disparate and sometimes desperately intense emotions and circumstances of her life over the past two years, using these experiences as a kind of creative crucible to build a new collection of original material that offers an insight into the heart and mind of a wonderfully honest and evocative artist.
There is a sublime and insistent literary and poetic tone to the lyrics, a dark sweetness that is often reflective of the tumult MacDougall has been faced with through several manifestly life-changing circumstances, as she has experienced both great loss and great joy, buffeting her emotional sensitivities and but bringing forth a creative energy that makes the songs on the album profoundly immersive listening experiences.
“All four of my grandparents died within two years. My grandparents were divorced, so they and their partners who I considered grandparents passed away. And then my niece was born, and my nephew was born. I also uprooted myself from the Yukon, where I had been living and came to Ontario, because I inherited my grandmother’s house. So, I came here to kind of take care of that and be closer to family for a while,” MacDougall said, from that very home in London, Ontario, a bustling urban centre of more than 350,000 people – a far cry from the smaller, isolated but tight knit northern community from which she came in Whitehorse.
“I moved from where I loved to be, to be somewhere new where I didn’t have lots of friends. And I also broke up with my partner over this time, and I found someone else. So, there were definitely a lot of things going on for me. And I think through all of this I was processing my feelings and these experiences through music. It seeps into my songs, although I didn’t set out to write an album influenced by those things, it just sort of happened.”
MacDougall’s music is compelling not only in the poetic voice of her lyrics, but also in the way she melds those words with compositions and melodic tones that are sometimes emotionally dissonant from the feelings the words alone may evoke. It’s a tribute to her skill as a masterful writer that while there may be a melancholic sombreness to the subject matter, being surrounded by upbeat, poppy tones actually reinforces the message, rather than detracting from it.
“I definitely do that on purpose, because I love that when I hear it in other people’s music, where it is conflicting and really sad subject matter is in the middle of this dance-y pop song. I think it makes you want to really sit and listen and pay attention to the songs even more. We started doing that on the last record [Grand Canyon, released in 2015]. I always had keyboards on my records, but before the first records were more like whirly sounds and organ kinds of things. And then on Grand Canyon I started moving more into synth. It’s just really fun and you get to do lots of really amazing stuff with it,” she said.
“I love Depeche Mode and Tears For Fears, who also kind of embodied that sound. And I also really love The National, and they have a lot of songs that have fast drums and are more upbeat, but the words and the singing are very slow and more dramatic.”
One reason why MacDougall and her music are delightfully hard to pigeonhole at times is because she her background is somewhat unconventional compared to those of many of her contemporaries on the Canadian independent music scene. Born and raised in Sweden, she didn’t come to Canada until early adulthood, and thus brought with her different cultural and musical sensibilities, and a different approach and environment for songwriting.
Being isolated from her home nation, and then being further isolated – by choice – by moving to Whitehorse in the Yukon, and even what one could interpret as isolation from the fickle fads and the machinery of the music industry, lends a true uniqueness and definite authenticity to MacDougall’s songs.
“I was 19 when I came to Canada. I think it’s probably the reason I write so many songs about longing and trying to find a home and stuff like that. Music is a little different between here and there. I didn’t grow up listening to the same things, like the Tragically Hip or a lot of bands that everyone knows here. I listened more to British bands or some American bands that were popular in Sweden and Swedish music,” she said.
“So of course, my approach is going to be a little different. And I still listen to a lot of Swedish music. And in Sweden nature and being outside is really an important part of life. I think the nature is really good for me because of that. I love going outside and it being really beautiful and going for long walks and being inspired by that – by the quiet and the solitude. And when you contrast it with the busy life of touring, it’s kind of great to be able to come home to someplace like that. I think that’s what I have been trying to find here since I moved to Ontario – a little oasis. There is the river and some really beautiful ponds very close to my house here, where it’s kind of wild as well. It just takes a little longer to find those spots, but they do exist. Ontario is also really beautiful in its own way.”
The most recent single from All The Hours I Have Left To Tell You Anything is the more folk-inspired Baby, I Know.
“That one came about when I was in Germany last September, and I was playing a festival called the Reeperbahn Festival, which was very overwhelming. It’s on the Reeperbahn, which is a basically a long street of music clubs [first gaining international recognition when the Beatles played there in their formative years]. And it’s just sensory overload at times. There were billboards everywhere with naked people, and lights and loud music and people all over the place, including families with couples and their kids being totally adorable. I don’t know how many bands there were, but there were a lot of bands and a lot of people everywhere for that whole week,” MacDougall said.
“I loved it, for the most part, but one day in the middle of it, I just got totally overwhelmed by it all and just decided I was going to stay in my hotel room for the day. So, I just picked up the guitar and wrote Baby, I Know. I think I played it for about eight hours in a row, and then I went on stage and played it that night. It’s a song, maybe for myself, but also for my partner, who also travels a lot, and sort of gives a lot of themselves. You don’t always get a lot of recognition for that, and it could be for just anyone like a nurse who is in a situation where they give a lot but don’t really get recognized for it. That’s what the song is about mainly for me, but it could really be about something else for someone else.”
Animal is somewhat of a thematic departure for MacDougall in that it is one of the rare songs in her catalogue to explore the sensually romantic side of her personality.
“That was the one I was probably the most scared about putting on the record because it was the most different from what I have done before, and kind of the most sexy. I am not used to doing that very much, but I really wanted to have that kind of feel on my album. So, it really is just a straightforward, sexy song about meeting someone that you have desire for,” she explained.
MacDougall’s artistry has garnered her legions of devoted fans, as well as a host of industry accolades. She has won three Western Canadian Music Awards and has been nominated for Contemporary Singer of the year by the Canadian Folk Music Awards. As well, her songs have earned placement on television, including on the popular series, The Vampire Diaries. Throughout her career as a life performer, she has shared the stage with the likes of Bruce Cockburn, Cat Empire, Buffy Ste. Marie, Passenger and many others.
She maintains a firm following back in her home country and hopes that at some point in her life and career, she can split her time between Sweden and Canada.
“My ideal situation would be to live in Europe part time. Living over there is just a matter of making it happen. I have a dog now too, so it’s a little harder to figure all those things out,” she said, with a chuckle.
MacDougall will be hitting the road in January for dates in western Canada throughout the winter, before heading back to Europe.
For more information on All The Hours I Have Left To Tell You Anything, and ongoing touring plans and other news, visit http://www.sarahmacdougall.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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