Shine On Sarah
Like many others, I didn’t really know who Sarah McLauchlan was until after her 1997 Surfacing. Surfacing was a reference to the 1972 Margaret Atwood novel of the same name. In the novel the female narrator is driven mad by her past. She eventually loses herself to the wilds of Canada. One of the major themes of the novel is separation, which is, no so coincidentally, the same theme of McLauchlan’s CD.
The song Building A Mystery reminded me a great deal of the men in my life. When I sat down to write my Greek Mythology themed book of poetry, Persephone’s Echo, this song came to mind. It seemed like a great metaphor to intertwine with Daedalus, the builder of the labyrinth.
Her song Winter and I Love You both inspired poems as well. I borrow the line “Island of Hope” from I Love You. Sweet Surrender and Adia were both good songs as well. Of course Angel was her biggest hit. It was used in the movie The City of Angels starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. Though The City of Angels was good, the original Wim Wender’s German classic Wings of Desire was much better.
Sarah McLauchlan’s 1995 song I Will Remember You was featured in the 1995 movie The Brother’s McMullan. This song also played at the end of the J.J. Abram’s show Felicity. I Will Remember You always reminded me of Ethan McMillan.
In 1997 Sarah McLauchlan provided the vocals for Delirium’s song Silence. However, I did not discover Silence until 2010 though. Silence came to represent how I felt during a very difficult time in my life. The song connected to both Joel and the TV show Lost for me, so I wrote the lyrics into a diary entry.
I got Touch, Solace and Fumbling Toward Ecstasy from the library. Though I enjoyed those CD none of them really moved me like Surfacing had. Fumbling Toward Ecstasy did produce several good songs though.
Possession was poetic. In 2003 the song Hold On reminded me of my friend Lynn and her husband, who was battling cancer. Ice Cream created a debate between my boyfriend and me back in 1999. He said Ice Cream was better than love and I was offended. This led him to give me the nickname “his little cookie dough” since cookie dough ice cream was his favorite.
McLauchlan came out with her new album Afterglow in 2003. Though perhaps not as strong as her 1997 album, I liked many of the songs on it. World on Fire played on the show Alias in Season 3. Her songs Fallen and Stupid hit home for me in 2005. Between the bankruptcy and the debacle with Ben, I was feeling like a stupid fallen woman.
The Law of Illusion was released in 2010. I listened to the CD, but did not connect with any of the songs on the album. I am looking forward to getting her new album Shine On. I haven’t heard her new single on the radio yet.
carilynn27 