It’s been 11 years since fans of beloved Canadian singer/songwriter Damhnait Doyle have been able to sink their proverbial teeth into a full album of her compelling solo musical compositions. But the long wait proved to be more than worth it with the release of her exceptionally revealing, emotionally daring, and potently blunt new album Liquor Store Flowers.
Its 11 songs are a roller coaster ride filled with highs, lows, periods of dread, rushes of excitement, moments of contemplation – all imbued with a bold honesty that is indicative of an artist who has reached an elevated plateau as a creative force, and is seeking to shake off the shackles of deep-seeded pain, loss and unhealthy thoughts before moving forward as a musician, a songwriter and a human being.
Liquor Store Flowers is a benchmark in Doyle’s career – one that is demonstrative of a songwriter and performer who is finally at peace with herself, comfortable in her own skin, and isn’t afraid to bare all, metaphorically, as a way to achieve a sense of catharsis and freedom from the past. And it is a past that is filled with the trappings of success, but also hard lessons learned.
Doyle’s career started out with a spectacular flourish of critical and commercial success, as her debut album, Shadows Wake Me, garnered a Juno nomination for Best New Solo Artist, as well as a handful of East Coast Music Award Nominations, and a chance to open for roots music legend Steve Earle on his cross-Canada tour.
This happened in 1996, and Doyle was just 17 years old. It is no surprise that her approach to the music industry, touring and making records may have changed in the intervening 23 years. It was four years before her next album, Hyperdramatic, was released, spawning the hit single Tattooed. This was followed by 2003’s Davnet. By then, Doyle was looking to step back from the intense glare of the spotlight one receives as a solo artist, soon thereafter joining friends and fellow recording artists Kim Stockwood and Tara McLean to form the roots-pop power trio Shaye.
Doyle then worked to hone her already considerable songwriting chops by taking on the challenge of writing for other people as part of the Songs from Instant Star program, with one of the songs also appearing on Degrassi: The Next Generation. In 2009, she became part of the talented country-tinged quartet The Heartbroken, alongside Blake Manning, Stuart Cameron and Peter Fusco. That came a year after her last solo album, Lights Down Low. It would be 11 years before she released another.
“I went through a lot in the last 10 years and learned a lot. And I always knew there was this record inside of me, I just didn’t really know how to access it. I didn’t think it was going to be by me doing it as a solo artist, to be honest with you. I thought those days were far, far, far behind me because I do love the idea of collaboration and making music with friends. But I needed to have a singular voice to get these things out, and it just took a long while. And, I have been busy – I have a five year old and a six year old. And I think that most people were introduced to me as an artist when I was 17 and hadn’t really lived a lot. And I needed to live these last years to have the life experience to write these new songs. So, it was just marinating for a while,” said Doyle, a native of Labrador City, from her home in Toronto.
“I think what spurred it was me starting therapy. It just gave me the courage to really listen to my intuition and to tap into what I already knew about myself. And it needed to get out – this record was a bit of an exorcism. Parts of writing some of these songs were truly, truly painful experiences. This was a very cathartic, healing experience where I felt my mandate was, ‘if I am going to do this, it better be so painfully honest and truthful and raw, and not sugar coated and not candy coated, because there is no other reason to make a solo record when you’re 43 unless you’re telling the god damned truth.’ And that’s really painful to do, especially when you have dedicated a lot of time to learn the craft of songwriting. And it really is a craft, but it can also kind of take over itself, in terms of wanting things to sound good and be perfect, but I consciously threw all of those things out the window. I wanted to feel something. And in those writing sessions, If I wasn’t feeling something, then it wasn’t going to happen.
“It was really one of those things where the only person who wanted this record made was me, and there is a freedom that comes with that – when you’re doing something completely for yourself as opposed to for other people in a band, or for a record label, or for any other myriad reasons why music is made today. It felt really great to be making it because I felt it had to be made. And it was kind of my way of journaling. For the song Birthday Parties, that lyric was written as one journal entry, in one go, just free-form. I may have figured out what part was the chorus and repeated that part, and we repeated one other line, but other that that, it is one million per cent a legit entry from my journal.”
The therapy helped Doyle feel less vulnerable and embrace not just the end result – the songs – but more importantly the process and what she would learn about herself, how she would be able to unburden her heart, mind, soul and spirit in a way that would be impactful for others as well as therapeutic for herself.
“I think back to when I was starting out, and I had a lot of success right out of the gate but standing side stage listening and watching Steve Earle that first night of touring with him, I realized if I am going to do this, I need to learn how to do it properly. And it took me another 20 years to get to that point. And along the way, those other things like writing for Instant Star and for other artists, really helps you access different parts of your brain. If I am writing for myself, it’s very different than writing with The Heartbroken or Shaye or another artist,” she said.
“And I realized what I want to go out and sing on stage is a very specific thing. And that is the world of Americana music, and that’s exactly what this record is. That’s all I want to sing on stage; I don’t want to do anything that’s veering away from that. Honestly, though, I have never felt better in my entire life. Therapy is a really great way to reflect on our life and make positive changes. The amount of mental energy I put on wellness and keeping my body and mind and spirit well is really a lot, especially with two kids. But I feel great. I feel completely unburdened because I am not making a false construct where I am begging people to believe in me, believe in my music.
“No, this is very clearly me, because it’s so raw. It feels good to be saying, ‘hey, these are all my flaws, these are all the terrible things I think sometimes, and they are all here in song form and guess what? I feel great, and I have no shame about who I am. This is good, this is me.’ And that’s a good feeling instead of trying to pretend to be something I am not. It’s such a good place to be once you get there. I literally kicked open Pandora’s Box. It’s like f*** this, this is happening. Honestly, it’s such a freeing thing when it happens. I would truly recommend having that vulnerability to be so honest and say, ‘these are all the terrible things I have done and guess what, I am still a great person, and I have a lot to contribute.’ I feel like that’s the first act of getting to the other side.”
With no pretense, ego and with only a little bit of trepidation, Doyle has used the vehicle of Liquor Store Flowers to not just unburden, but empower herself, taking the completion of this emotionally arduous process as the prototypical wiping of the slate clean.
“I was concerned about the content of a couple of the songs because they were so raw and truthful and honest. I was like, ‘is this in any way going to be hurtful for somebody else?’ I did have a couple of those thoughts, but it didn’t stop me from making it. But other than that, I found such peace within myself, because I have always known that I had something inside of me that I didn’t quite get out. It was always falling a little short, for whatever reason. And so, I knew once I made this record and once it was mixed, I knew it was special. I knew this was what I was working towards for my entire career – every moment, every song I have ever written, bad or good, was leading me to this,” she said.
“Now, at 40-something years of age, it feels good to just go, without ego or anything, ‘this is as good as I am going to get. And I think it’s great.’ And if I think it’s great, then what a better feeling. You don’t care about what other people are thinking. I am not looking for outside validation to tell me how to feel about this, I already know how I feel about this and I am really proud and really excited, and I am so happy that people are already reacting to it positively. What a gift. And it’s funny, after this process I feel that I am starting in this business for the first time.”
That’s What You Get, the lead-off track for the album, was one of the first songs composed for the record and set the theme for ruthless self-examination and ultimately revelation that permeates every note and word on Liquor Store Flowers.
“I wrote this with two of my legitimate best friends who just happen to be published songwriters down in Nashville and they are Canadian – Emily Reid and Robyn Dell’Unto. We were writing in Emily’s apartment and I was pacing around and saying ‘no, this song needs to hurt more, we’re just skimming the surface. No, I don’t want it to be pretty, I want it to be ugly.’ I was pacing around and shouting out lyrics and Emily was furiously writing them down. And we managed to cobble the song together that night. And then when I came home to Toronto, I wrote the bridge which is about lines around your face,” Doyle explained.
“And I realized if I am going to talk in a song about how my hair is greying and how these little lines are creeping around all over my face, that was the moment with this record where I realized I was on to something. ‘This is so truthful, don’t pull back the reins now, just keep going.’ I have a very intuitive personality and I feel other people’s feelings and I am working very hard on that. It is painful when you walk into a room and you feel that you are the one who can make every single person in that room comfortable. In order to do that you have to shapeshift a little bit; you have to be who other people need or want you to be. And ultimately that led me to be very, very unhappy, that sentiment of being a people pleaser – I could never say no.
“There were a lot of things I have done in my life and in my career that, even though my intuition was saying no, that’s the wrong step to make, that’s the wrong thing to do, you feel this obligation or this pressure coming from somewhere and you decide to go along with it. I think when I turned 40, I just made this decision that, no, I am done with that. I am done with taking on other people’s garbage and making it my own. I have to deal with my own baggage, which I did and will continue to do for the rest of my life and take responsibility for myself and open up and be vulnerable, and truly be myself. And if people like it, great. If they don’t, great, who cares. The song is about this amazing awareness about what vulnerability was and that I didn’t allow myself to be vulnerable. I built all these defenses around me, emotional defences to keep myself safe. But, really, safe is being hidden away; safe is living in a cage; safe is not truly living life, or truly creating art. It’s basically an analogy for everything I went through in my life.”
The unfiltered nature of the compositions is continued through the sometimes visceral and unbridled emotional vocal work on many of the songs, including the exceptionally charged So Clean, which is Doyle’s polemic against religious hypocrisy.
“I wrote this before the U.S. government started putting kids in cages, because let me tell you, it would have been even more scathing. I was actually in Florida when the Parkland school shooting happened, and it really affected me. We were only about 10 miles away, and that day we saw all of the kids from the local high school going to the beach and bringing flowers and releasing them into the ocean. And I was there with my kids and it just got me in the gut. But it’s been getting me in the gut watching from afar for a while now. My husband is American, and his family is American, so I have a vested interest in what happens down there,” she said, adding that her anger was fomented by many religious leaders and spokespeople backing the agenda of President Trump and the Republican administration, many of whose words and actions were decidedly un-Christian.
“I felt like there were a lot of people not only hiding behind their religion but twisting it to suit their own purposes. There was a lot of justification happening within religious communities and systems and the hypocrisy of that made me so angry. I grew up Catholic, and if you really are going to live a live by the book, if that’s your interpretation of the Bible where it’s okay to take undocumented children from Mexico who are three years old and separating them from their families, that is a religion I want nothing to do with.”
Honesty and heartfelt emotions aren’t always about unleashing a torrent of long held pain and sadness. Joy and feelings of gratitude can also spill out of an artist’s heart just as easily and with as much of a potent punch but for the positive. Doyle crafted the truly beautiful song Better Life alongside long-time pal, the noted, award-winning Canadian country star, Carolyn Dawn Johnson.
Better Life is a message of hope and love from an adoptive mom,
“My husband and I had the blessed miracle of adopting our oldest daughter. We were in the hospital with her minutes after she was born, and it was a freaking miracle. We got a call on Monday that we were chosen to be parents and then that Thursday your daughter is born. And it was interesting because people would be curious. They would see me regularly and know that this three-week old baby did not come out of my body. But adoption is not the focal point of our family; we just have so much love in our house it’s ridiculous. And then two and a half months later we found out that I was three and a half months pregnant, so our kids are eight months apart. So, hello!! It’s actually a miracle that I made this record,” said Doyle of her now five and six year old kids.
“But even today people would ask, ‘what happened to the parents? I could never give up my baby.’ And that would make me so angry, I had this deep pit of anger in my body, and it was tough to work through why it was making me angry, because in Ontario we have open adoptions., so I feel and felt nothing but love and gratitude to my daughter’s birth parents. And when people would ask that question it would make me angry because they didn’t understand. When somebody gives a child up for adoption, they are choosing that child over themselves. They are choosing to sacrifice their own heart so this child that they made can have a better shot at life, for whatever reason.
“So, I wrote that song with dear friend Carolyn Dawn Johnson in Nashville. She is amazing and I wrote the lyrics for the first couple of verses and I went to her and said, ‘I have this idea for a song about adoption,’ and we wrote it in a pretty short amount of time. She is a genius and it’s a topic that she herself had actually written about before. There are so many miracles that are part of this story, and I hope that comes through in the song. I mean, I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not have kids. It wasn’t like we were trying, we were just working off the information that if it happened it would be like one in a million. But you know, the one in a million had to happen to someone, and it happened to us, so it’s pretty incredible.”
What is also incredible is just how soul searing and palpably gripping each and every song is on Liquor Store Flowers. It is an album that demands multiple listens, and an openness to hearing one artist – one woman’s – truth in as bold, unpretentious and unrelentingly sober and forthright as any could ever hope to be.
For more information on Damhnait Doyle, Liquor Store Flowers and any upcoming shows, visit www.damhnaitdoyle.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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