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Rachael Sage Reimagines Songs for New Album |
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Rachael Sage describes her U.K. tour as “a dream situation. It really
was. I always admired the artist Lulu and her long, diverse and dynamic
career and to be her support while playing so many beautiful theaters
was just a treat. I was the support act for her whole farewell tour.
Everything was fantastic. She has such a loyal and enthusiastic
audience. She took us through this incredible journey through the
decades. It was her version of the Eras tour (editor’s note: For
anyone who has been living off-planet that is a Taylor Swift reference).
She had wonderful projections and artists with whom she collaborated.
She went from David Bowie to Elton John. It was all over the map. It was
the kind of revue you might expect from Bette Midler or Cher. There were
songs from her early career and then all the way up to more recent
albums. It was really fun and it kind of felt like it should end up
being a Broadway show or something. It is sad that it was her farewell
tour. She was on fire until the very end and I can’t even imagine that
she is not going to tour anymore.
(She sang) “To Sir With Love,” and at the end everybody was on their
feet. It was very, very poignant.
She told some interesting stories about how the same songs were not as
popular in England as they were in America. Over there it was not the
number one hit there, as it was over here, but she gave it, its due in
the show.”
Rachael Sage helps us to understand better what she means about her
songs for the album Another Side are reimagined. “Back in the day
I might have just put in parenthesis acoustic, but I have seen a lot of
artists whom I admire, ditch that for reimagined, when it is not that
cut and dry. It is not just that we are muting all the electric guitars.
These are songs that are a little more reflective of what I might do
live and stripped back in some ways, but some of them are more chamber
strings and maybe don’t have the drums. They really are top to bottom
rearranged and that is why I used that term reimagined.
They are essentially more acoustic based arrangements. There are a
variety of special guests whom I felt really fit the songs and the new
arrangements. They had become a part of the fabric of my community,
whether in upstate New York or along the tour that I have been doing
throughout the year.
It was fun to deconstruct them and start fresh with the same material
after living with it and performing it live for a year.”
Rachael Sage turns
her attention to talking about one of those songs, “The Place Of
Fun,” which opens with the somewhat melancholic lyrics, “I look into the
abyss of your eyes / And I see the failure I’m afraid / To concede
because it’s all my own…”
She explains, “There was that dynamic during the lockdown (during the
pandemic), whereas a collective society and an entire continent we were
evaluating the things that we missed and things we couldn’t live
without. There was this sense of loss and tension and anxiety.
As we were deeper into the experience and emerging from it, I think
there was also a sense that we didn’t necessarily lose track of that
inward reflection. We didn’t want to go back to exactly the way it was.
I knew that applied to me, but pretty much everyone that I knew. You
evaluated how you didn’t want to keep everything about the way it was,
and you evaluated what wasn’t working. That is really what those lines
allude to, that numbness and sense of being paralyzed. It was about just
missing joy and connection. I think when we were all emerging from
lockdown there was such a desperation to connect and to reconnect with
loved ones. It isn’t entirely negative. It is more remembering and
envisioning again what is important and what you do need in your life.”
The light dawns on us, it is about getting back to the place of fun, as
encapsulated in the song title.
Creative people by their very nature tend to be more impacted by the
world around them, so we asked Rachael Sage if this was true for her,
relative to the COVID pandemic.
“I think it necessarily had to. Of course, it was a very long period of
time and in some ways, it is still continuing. I have two close friends
who (recently) tested positive for COVID, so they had to cancel a slew
of commitments and social activities in their lives. I just heard about
it. That is still going on and it isn’t absolutely over. I think we have
just learned to live with it and to tolerate it.
I think there are some metaphors between the pandemic and chronic
illness even on an individual level that are applicable, and I certainly
felt that as a cancer survivor as we were at the height of the pandemic.
In a weird and kind of surrealistic way I may be more prepared for this
than some other people may be, because I have kind of gone through this
personal trial and illness. I learned to let go of things and maybe it
was uncomfortable to do that, but I had no choice and then I made peace
with that.
The whole process of balancing self-awareness and community and all of
it and reevaluating your entire life. It is not convenient, but
sometimes you have no choice, but to do it. I think the pandemic forced
virtually everyone to do that.
When we all came back to the city, I was in the middle to Times Square
and I had an experience when I was looking at all of these enormous
screens that advertise all kinds of stuff that didn’t matter and I
wasn’t focusing on, but they were still automatically just doing it.
There was not a soul in the streets walking around. It was haunting and
just creepy.
I think in a lot of ways it applies to music and musicians and how we
are reacting to the climate now. I know when I finally got some work
again and got back to touring in England, a couple of years ago, which
is a big market for me, I remember that feeling of sheer elation to just
be altogether again, experiencing music and creativity. It was like, we
did it. We survived the apocalypse type of feeling. I still feel that
way. I hope I never lose that appreciation, although we tend to, and we
need to reset and remind ourselves of our blessings as we move forward.”
Back to the song “The Place Of Fun,” she says, “I wanted to redo all of
them, because what happens is I am kind of a kitchen sink producer. I
was raised on The Beatles and the idea that you use the studio as
another instrument. It is not just you hit record and you are playing,
in some sort of Elvis style, as what goes in is what you get. I have
always loved to layer and layer and layer and to try a million different
things. Perhaps sometimes I even overproduced. I enjoy the process so
much.
I have a lot of people ask me at my shows, do you have anything that
sounds more like what I am hearing tonight, whether it be myself, my
violinist or a trio and percussion, things like that. I tend to perform
more that way, because it is more about the intimacy and the
storytelling and the lyrics. I like music like that as well. I love all
of it. I love, Rock, I love Pop and I am also very much a Folk artist,
(she chuckles) about half of the time.
It really was about stripping things back and having the song at the
forefront. I guess it is (similar) to doing something in the workshop at
a public theater versus it being on Broadway, with the analogy being
that I did that in reverse. I started with the big extravaganza and now
I am scaling it back, to just that intimacy, between the listener and
the song itself.”
The song “Albatross,” was birthed in the heart of the pandemic and at a
time when, and this would be an understatement, Rachael Sage was living
in a very humbling dwelling outside of New York City.
She talks about that time in her life, “I think we were all in a panic
and self-preservation mode, especially with New Yorkers where it was the
epicentre of everything and there was an enormous amount of fear. I was
on the road with Howard Jones, and we were in Pittsburgh when we got
that edict that this will be the last show. Howard was going home,
before he wouldn’t be able to get back to England. Good luck to
everyone. Love you. See you soon.
I was in touch with my family and my sister who is a journalist said to
me in no uncertain terms, don’t go back to the city. Stay out of the
city and be prepared for wherever you are going to stay for two or three
months. I thought she was insane, but she knew, because she was reading
things that we weren’t reading. She had an aerial view of it all.
I thought I want to be near my best friend, and we wanted to be
together. She is my tour manager, so we quickly looked for an Airbnb for
me online and I found a place across the street from her. I was just up
the stairs from a married couple who taught at Yale and their newborn
baby. It was just a room, without a kitchen. It was pretty humble I
suppose, but I wasn’t really thinking of it that way. I was thinking
about how lucky I was to be with my friend, we could both leave our
houses and meet in the backyard. We could walk together and commiserate
and make each other laugh and get through this together.
That is where my head was at, and we certainly didn’t expect it to be
six months. Airbnb turned into an actual lease and a rental, and I was
there for quite a while. That was unanticipated, but I was safe and when
it was time I sought other accommodations not too far away. All you need
is one great friend to get you through any humungous crisis. That’s my
belief.
I did experience quite a bit of isolation, but it was all relative. We
could go for a walk, laugh, take videos of each other and put them up on
YouTube. We were trying to be creative. I was so proud to be a part of
the singer and songwriter community as well. We all figured out how to
livestream and share music with our listeners and that was an enormous
help.”
The song, “Forgive Me This,” a cover of Danielle Gerber (co-written with
Julian Harris and Tina Shafer), is introduced by the luscious strings of
violinist Kelly Halloran and Dave Eggar’s cello. Rachael Sage’s ethereal
vocals whisper, “No I didn’t anticipate this / No it wasn’t supposed
to end like this / But something inside holds on so deep so tight / I
have to decide and give up this fight.” We would also be remiss if
we did not mention the wonderful upright bassist, Conrad Korsch. In a
collection of songs that pulls at your heartstrings, without being
manipulative, this is the prettiest.
She says about the song, “I love everything about it. I love that it is
courageous. I love that it is vulnerable, and I love the melody.
Everything about it made me wish it was one of the songs that I had
written. I think it can mean a lot of different things to the listener.
I happen to personally know what it was written about from my friend
Danielle Gerber. I don’t even like to tell people that I know what it is
about. I think the title is brilliant. It could just be Forgive Me or it
could be Forgive Me and then something specific, but Forgive Me This
pulls you in. It makes you want to know about the person writing and
singing the song.
I always loved Danielle Gerber’s version of it, and I never felt that it
got the attention it deserved. It just stuck in my head from the very
first time that I heard it. I always noodled on it on the piano. Ten
years later I was playing it on a livestream and a lot of people asked
me wow what was that? I explained it wasn’t my song, but hopefully I did
justice to it. It is one of my favorites.”
The song “No Regrets,” has an interesting story behind it, “It is such a
special situation, because my dad is now one of my best friends and I
adore him. I didn’t really know him that well when I was growing up. He
was a workaholic, and he would say the same, so you see where I get it
from (light chuckle). He was a way a lot. He became ill during lockdown,
and he developed lymphoma. My sister, my mother and I were all
caregiving for him.
The silver lining of a terrible situation that we wouldn’t wish upon
anyone is it brought us closer together. We spent an enormous amount of
time together and as he was emerging from that illness he wrote an
adorable poem on a scrap of paper. About 75% of the lyrics are his, the
first verse, the chorus, the second verse and then I filled in a few
blanks along the way. It was a recounting of the things that he loved,
appreciated and maybe he missed doing, while he was sick. I thought I
would surprise him, by turning it into a song. I did that for him, and I
played it for him on his 80th birthday and during lockdown.
It is a very special one for me. He loves it and we got to make a video
together. That was fun and thankfully he is doing just fine now. It is a
good ending to the story.”
Rachael, you collaborated with Mikhail Pivovarov, who engineered, mixed
and mastered your record.
“He is a wonderful engineer. We just nailed it. He let me be me. He
helped me to achieve and to amplify what I was going for. I feel like we
have become good friends through the years. He is super talented.
Everything he records
sounds crystalline and beautiful.
I think I am at a point in my life when it is just nice to feel
comfortable with someone. You have each other’s backs, and you complete
each other’s sentences That is how I like it in the studio now.
Again, during the lockdown I had a lot of time to reflect upon on how I
really enjoy doing things. I like when it is just easy and comfortable,”
she says.
We mused about Another Side, being a reflective album in many
ways and we asked Rachael Sage about that, “Sure, I think the practice
of writing songs is necessarily reflective, unless you are just trying
to get a crowd of festivalgoers going with a banger chorus. If you are
writing verses, you are telling a story and you are revealing something
about yourself as an artist. There is a range there (concerning) how
reflective we go. Even with songs when I am covering someone else’s
material, I hope that the vocal production and trying to set a mood and
some magic between the other musicians that there is a reflectiveness
happening and capturing a moment in time, which is all a record is
doing.”
Please take time to visit the Rachael Sage
website.
#RachaelSageMusic #RachaelSageInterview #MusicInterview #EntrevistaMusica #RivetingRiffsMagazine #RivetingRiffs #RachaelSageEntrevista #RevisitaMusica
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It
has been quite a spring for American singer, songwriter and musician
Rachael Sage, as she opened on a tour in the U.K. for Scottish legendary
singer with the mononymous name Lulu. Rachael Sage also released her
album Another Side, a collection of reimagined songs, previously
recorded and this time with new arrangements. One of our favorite guests
at Riveting Riffs Magazine, she is always personable, reflects carefully
before expressing her thoughts, she is transparent, and she knows
herself pretty well. 