Sounds Like Motherhood

This coming Friday, May 12th, I'm going to be a guest on CBC Radio One's "Sounds Like Canada" with Shelagh Rogers.

This is part of my Canadian Dream.

So I'm just going to pause and savour it. (Pause. Savour.)

As I do, I'm going to resist the temptation to do what I've often done; that is, immediately raise the bar on myself and set a new much-higher goal.

I'm not going to tell myself, "Yeah, sure, but I still want to play Massey Hall and be awarded the Order of Canada".

Nope, I'm not saying that today. Today I'm saying "This coming Friday, May 12th, I'm going to be a guest on CBC Radio One's "Sounds Like Canada" with Shelagh Rogers."

I'm going to be singing "First Day of School" and "The Tooth Fairy Forgot" in honour of Mother's Day and in support of an event I'm participating in called Mamapalooza on May 14th.

This is interesting, because for the past several years I've been slightly annoyed when people highlight the "motherhood" angle of my music.

Even though the vast majority of my songs are about other subjects (relationships, spirituality, urban living...) it's been the "motherhood songs" that have stood out for many listeners. Reviewers have written "She writes about everyday subjects! Her house, her kids!!" and it's always been a bit mystifying to me.

Harry Chapin wrote "Cats in the Cradle" (well, actually, his wife wrote the lyrics) and nobody called him a "Dad Singer". Eric Clapton wrote "Tears in Heaven" and nobody called it a "grieving father's song". Bono has a song about his father on U2's latest album. And then there's Lee Anne Womack's "I Hope You Dance" which is in a class all its own.

Our relationship with our parents and our children (if we have them) is a crucial part of life. It's a universal theme.

And yet, writing songs from a mother's perspective is sometimes considered less than cool.

I've been advised, more than once, to keep my "mom songs" in the closet and off the stage. To sing more "love songs". To be more "mysterious".

My song "First Day of School" is probably the least mysterious song I've ever written.

It's the one that makes people cry, even people who don't have children.

It's the song that pushed me out of my house and onto a stage; the song that propelled me after twenty years of closeted songwriting into a local cafe to announce "I want a gig".

It's the song that started my education in what it means to be an artist: to express myself truthfully, to take a stand for the things I believe in, to live according to my values.

It's a song about the "true", the "false" and the "all of the above" of life.

And it's the first song I'll be singing on "Sounds Like Canada".