Standing on Her Own: Lori McKenna

Standing on Her Own: Lori McKenna
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By Brian D'Ambrosio

Lori McKenna has long been one of the more interesting singer-songwriters working on the periphery of the nationalized regulator of mainstream music, with each of her ten albums reflecting a separate creative point.

Her newest album, The Bird and The Rifle, feels surprisingly liberated given the burden of the subject matter: domestic incongruity, parental apprehensions, as well as other widespread feelings of individual human pining. Indeed, the entire offering is eloquent and affecting, a sweet taste of self-reconciliation, something you feel in your abdomen.

"The whole thing has been such a pleasure from start to finish and my only question after it was done was whether or not I was involved in it. That's because I didn't set out to do it this way and I felt very comfortable in the environment and manner (producer Dave Cobb) records. It's done in trust mode. No second guessing or over-thinking, creating this vibe that's relaxed. I was plugged into his world."

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Photo courtesy Lori McKenna

The ten tracks are pieced together with beautiful melodies and dialogue; lyrics are plain-spoken and pointed on the sensitive "Halfway Home" and the agreeably melancholic "Giving Up On Your Hometown," which shifts naturally from elation to resignation. Characters in songs such as "Giving Up On Your Hometown" ramble and wander like a ship without a helm, anchored only by McKenna's lonely, yet resiliently optimistic vocals:

It don't make sense
But the cheap motel is always open
Seems like we're sitting in a handbasket
Wondering where it's going
There's a freshwater shark in a small fish tank
Behind the counter
Door's always locked
And you gotta pre-pay in cash by the hour

"My voice lends itself to those types of songs that are sad and simple," said McKenna. "I'm attracted to sad, simple songs and those are the ones I'm most comfortable with. I'm a person who avoids confrontations in real life and I enjoy them (confrontations) in songs a lot. I'm very happy in real life and I realize a lot of my songs are not happy. I believe that has a lot to do with where my voice fits and where it sounds best. If I decided I could sing differently, the songs might be different, melodically, lyrically. I'm comfortable singing about those things, even if it's not about me."

"Halfway Home" is a parental instruction to a daughter, emphasizing the value of female self-esteem and pride, cautionary chiding that first and foremost she needs to be her own savior.

Deep down you know
That you're worth more than this
Or the cost of that dinner last night
He'd be driving you home
If he was worth half the shit
And his daddy had raised him up right

"I think that one of the points of music is to get these emotions out of us and to stop us in our tracks. That's where the emotions fit, and though it can be a little nervous singing in front of people, it's the emotions (within the songs) that people are forced to be most honest about. As far as music that is good for dancing and feeling good, I've never been so good at that. Happy words don't rhyme as much as sad words do. Happy songs don't rhyme as well as the sad ones."

Clearly, McKenna has honed the art of singing and writing with elegance, and if happy songs don't carry the same emotional and vocal charge for her, well, this particular collection of work is the more beautiful and appealing for it.

"I guess that as the songwriter, I see things differently than the listener," said McKenna. "At the end, it's all not so sad - not really, right? - we love, and we learn, and we've all been in relationships that are not healthy anymore. We grow from those experiences, and music allows us to put a little bit of a light on it. I see the light as brighter than the listeners do."

"Humble & Kind," popularized by Tim McGraw, was obviously inspired by McKenna's five children, ranging in ages from 12 to 27. (McKenna, age 48, grew up the youngest of six children.)

"My oldest is 27 and I can say that they keep you up at night in a whole different way as they get older. I have to say on "Halfway Home," I have not had that experience with one of my children, but I wondered how it would've felt if it were one of my kids. It's great to see the world from what they see out of their eyes, rather than from our own heads. (As a songwriter), I love to pick apart that part of everyone's life - in a three and a half minute song - to express all of the crazy things that happen to all of us.

The Bird and The Rifle is an incisive, enjoyable piece of art, testament to the beautiful kinship between the stories and the characters and singer's voice. It all plays out with a trusting realism that feels exactly right. Indeed, trust - or more specifically - trust in the great unknown, is a clause of faith which has motivated and pushed McKenna to ultimately stand strong on the virtues of her own identity.

Indeed, setting off into the unknown is scary, but sometimes it's the only way to discover or give life to art. Though she started writing songs at approximately age 13, McKenna only developed confidence as a singer-songwriter in taverns and clubs at age 27.

"Well, it's been 20 years since I started going to open mic nights and it just became part of our lives, without making a decision. It's a great part of our environment here in Boston, and a mentoring part. I wouldn't have left the house if it weren't for the support of the songwriter community here. I didn't plan on it. I didn't think I had the ability or I was good enough for it. The more I would put into music, I would get more out of it. It has been so kind to me."

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Photo courtesy Lori McKenna

Since the release of Paper Wings and Halo in 2000, the details of McKenna's life have gradually slipped into focus, for her and for us. She embraces the thick insularity of family and the equally broad support base she relies on in her hometown of Stoughton, Massachusetts, where she niftily commingles dual roles of mother and musician.

"I've always been the opposite of worldly," said McKenna. "There are 30,000 people in this town, close-knit, but not a small town. I guess at times when I feel very small-minded, I feel that the things that I write about are in the house or the kitchen, so to speak. You write what you know, and I'm a homebody, and I write about what family has meant to me, or the things I've learned in school and church, and I've written from that perspective. Music is beautiful in that it brings something out of us that we didn't expect. You take a piece of an emotion and light it on fire.

"I'm always interested in people in the house and the smaller, different places, like in the car, and in the kitchen, and these kinds of places as the fiber of where their lives take place. Not so much scenery. Being such a home-based person, it's all coming from in the kitchen (McKenna even released an album called The Kitchen Tapes (2004)."

Indeed, the kitchen, the home, and the family are all reference points, similes, and standard repositories in McKenna's songwriting, inescapable insights into her own reality.

"As a singer and performer, I spend a lot of time sitting in a room and talking about my feelings," said McKenna. "My husband is a plumber and he works for the gas company. He knows how my brain works and he knows where my brain trails off to and he understands that sometimes I'll have to write while waiting for dinner in the kitchen."

Brian D'Ambrosio's latest book, "Life in the Trenches," earned an independent book award for non-fiction. It offers 37 narratives and stories of modern day trench warriors - including Stephen King's favorite folksinger (James McMurtry); a Greco-Roman wrestler and MMA forefather from the Midwest (Dan "The Beast" Severn); entertainment wrestlers so convincing as villains that they repeatedly put their own lives in danger (Ivan Koloff, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper).

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