photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen Brandi Carlile By The Way, I Forgive You
Written by Brandi Carlile
By The Way, I Forgive You is not an album is the safest time to be alive in human history. about forgiveness in the easy sense—where Can we love one another as ourselves? More someone has hurt you and then suddenly there’s importantly, can we love ourselves at all? a great reconciliation and a remorse-filled The songs alone aren’t universal messages, they are two people running across the scene with personal stories of our parents and childhood, our golden wheat field towards an embrace that divorces, oppressive religion, the fact that marriage somehow undoes a lifetime of pain and is hard and having children is fucking terrifying, damage, as if the past has no meaning. It’s about even the sting of death. It is the story of radical acceptance (not to be confused with forgiveness, that despite all this keeps us complacency) and unconditional love. innocently climbing out of bed every morning open Whoever is reading this, your parents will to love—big terrible trembling love. die. You may have been hurt or loved by I don’t love you because you’ve done what I them, probably both. But can you forgive think you should do with your life. I love you them for leaving in the end? We are a powerful generation witnessing war and whatever you do, but I’ve got a life to live too. And, by the way, I forgive you. division like never before, yet somehow this
Dave Cobb
Working with Dave Cobb was a masterclass. It was permission to explore unbridled drama.
Of all the music I’ve made, no one has inspired me to scream and dance and cry like Dave Cobb. He’s a proper feminist and the father of a tough daughter. I’ll never be the same artist. It’s as if the twins and I were shown ourselves in color for the first time. Dave is a real life fucking unicorn of a producer.
Shooter Jennings
Shooter had me at The Never Ending Story. We are separated at birth.
I knew I wanted to work with Shooter the first time we discussed our hopes that our generation and peers would turn their heels on the dangers of disappearing down a path of “retromania”. Shooter knows that right now matters, that this moment is profound enough. We don’t need to pretend we’re hopping a train, or slinging coal, or fighting our way through the great depression to be seen as artists. What would Woody Guthrie say now? He’d probably look and sound a lot like Shooter Jennings.
Paul Buckmaster
I was 16 years old when I carefully peeled down the picture of Paul Buckmaster from the wall of the singlewide trailer I grew up in. I’d cut it out of The Tumbleweed Connection, which was my favorite Elton John album at the time, I was 12. Paul arranged the strings for almost all of Elton John’s music in the 70’s. On that particular day I had been invited by a producer friend of the family to watch Paul conduct a symphony at a small Seattle studio. He was brilliant, a true eccentric who handed me a guitar and cried while I sang “60 Years On”. He signed my picture and told me we would meet again down the road. He was telling the truth.
The Twins
The Twins and I have been in a band for so long now. And not just a band, we are literally a family. We’ve been through it all together. Standing at the altar next to my sister and Phil while they got married, I looked at Tim and smiled, he was Phil’s best man and I was the maid of honor, and it occurred to us both at the same time how much further we’d taken true intimacy than most bands. They are who I have cast my lot with. When you create art with twins, it becomes unclear when I end and where they begin. I feel the weight of it but the absurdity of a shared existence is lost on someone who shares even his face. This is our jumping- off point for creativity—total trust. We have gone down a different road on this record because even as we were writing our most sacred poetry as individuals, it suddenly hit us that we were writing about the same life, the same family— the same story.
Song By Song
I’m writing this on behalf of myself and Tim and Phil that she leaves without loved ones and without a name. Hanseroth with whom I share this poetry and these “Your mother called you something sweet once, it was more convictions. than Fulton County Jane.”
Every Time I Hear That Song Sugartooth Once upon a time a marriage ended in a hard fall from the “What the hell are you going to do when the world has made its heights of youth. The confusion and pain fading with the years mind up about you?” into the only thing that heals anything. I’ll never forget having to tell my brothers that their childhood “That’s twice you broke my heart now, the first was way friend had taken his own life. There’s no dignity in death and when. And to know you’re still unhappy, only makes it back there’s no escape in drugs. There’s no reconciliation in the break again.” final act, only peace and only forgiveness.
The Joke Most Of All What would Freddie say? “We are the champions of the If your parents are still alive don’t forget to tell them that you world”. Anyone who has ever seen an adolescent boy tugging on his shirt, struggling to be accepted but most of all struggling love them and mean it. If your parents are not still alive, to accept himself as he is. Anyone who feels the sting of don’t forget to tell them you love them and mean it. They are your first love. hopelessness because we have daughters who are seen by much of the world as half human and incapable of leadership. Harder To Forgive Anyone who is told they are illegal, unworthy, unwelcome or unloved. We’ve already won. The Joke is on those in “There are days when I will let the darkness rise, I don’t always choose to stay on the sunny side”. temporary power. Love has already conquered the world. I feel like sometimes choosing to forget gives us the space we Hold Out Your Hand need so that we can do the work of forgiveness. I think of it Sometimes when the weight of the world feels too much, I as the prequel to forgiveness. “The ones who believe choose want to dance with a redneck and shotgun a beer. the night”
Party Of One The Mother “When you’re home, you’re already home” “Welcome to the end of being alone inside your mind”... To some, this sounds like the realization of their most sacred If I can speak frankly and out of metaphor I only have one dreams – true companionship. For some, this sacrifice is example of marriage to look to as an example—the one my too much to bear and requires its own brand of radical parents have. For most of my life, marriage has not even forgiveness. For the most part and for me, it’s equal measures been a legal right for people like me, so there’s so much I of both. I am not just a mother, but it’s all that I am. hadn’t considered, looking down the road of a lifetime of dating and unsanctioned partnerships. Whatever You Do Whoever you are, if you’re married, you’ve been asked this This is about unconditional love balanced by rage. I hated question – “does it feel different now?” The answer for me learning this lesson but it’s the only kind of freedom that has been yes every time. Life tests me now and I know that I matters. will stay. I don’t ask myself what it means for my devotion. When the roof falls in I know that it needs to be rebuilt with Fulton County Jane Doe faithful hands. We are the generation to challenge domesticity We come into life with nothing but a name. A father of a brand and the marriage paradigm and it will challenge us right back. new little baby girl reads a news story one night while he’s alone “I am not my own” on the road. The body of “Jane Doe” was found abandoned in a field with her head smashed in out in Fulton County, Georgia. We know she gave birth at some point, she was 30, and that she had “Jesus” tattooed on her hand. It’s not fair that she left this world in that way, but it’s unspeakable