back in the studio, with a special guest

i had about a 3 month delay while i sorted some things out in my head ... one thing: i’m going to be a mommy! ohmygodholyshitwow... and the other thing: can i be a mommy and still be a singer/songwriter?...

and the answer is yes, at least i hope so!

today was fantastic. we didn’t expect to get so much done, but we started exploring a song that was, as far as arrangement is concerned, a bit of a question mark, and we found some beautiful things. i’m really excited to be working with asi, and amazed that i found a musical soulmate in this unlikely part of the world, so far away from home...

so i’m back in the studio (which feels like home, no matter the country), thrilled to be doing my very favorite work all day long. and i love knowing that my baby is growing in me while i make music everyday, and all those soundwaves and good vibrations are nourishing us both. all of my records have been special exeriences for me, but that is what is going to make this one extra special for me.

12:59 PM - 23 Comments - 39 Kudos - Add Comment

i want to know what you think

i added some new stuff i'm working to to my alter-ego profile, mirabai. you can find the downloadable songs at www.myspace.com/lovemirabai

they are works in progress and i'd love your feedback! so go to www.myspace.com/lovemirabai, add me over there, download the songs, have a listen, and comment or message me.

thanks!
xo
lauren

5:38 AM - 8 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

"falling slowly"

i loved the movie "once". it was the first film i've seen to capture the life of a songwriter or performer in a way that is consistant with my own experience. in general, i love movies about the artisitc struggle, like "amadeus" about mozart, and "all that jazz", about bob fosse, but i find that most films that include characters who are supposed to be singers and/or songwriters don't hit the mark. they usually seem cheesy or superficial or overly melodramatic. maybe in this movie, the difference is that the actors aren't really actors; they're singer/songwriters...

so i am thrilled that glen hansard and marketa irglova won an oscar for their song "falling slowly" from that film. i felt it was a win for independent musicians the world over; it was a win for those artists who just keep doing it, despite the endless walls that pop up in front of their faces, despite the heartless steamroller of the music industry, despite the emotional rollercoaster of the artist's lifestyle. god knows, i buckle under that weight often enough. but when i look out there and i see someone kinda like me succeeding in such an unlikely way, it really does help.

also, the chick with the tattoo who wrote "juno" won for best screenplay. kick ass.

Currently listening : Once By Original Soundtrack Release date: 22 May, 2007

10:32 PM - 9 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

new music is here

new songs, new name, new myspace profile:

www.myspace.com/lovemirabai

7:23 AM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

new song high

ah the joy of the newly penned tune, there is nothing like it. and today it came, all in a rush, in the 30 minutes i had before meeting my friends for lunch.

and i'm still giddy, like the afterglow of a perfect first kiss.

these days, life feels like a new blank book, waiting to be filled with stories and adventures. i don't know what will unfold in the next chapter, but i'm on the edge of my seat, ready to find out.

♥
lauren

12:20 PM - 10 Comments - 26 Kudos - Add Comment

ten years

ten years ago my first record was released, and ten years ago my friend jeff buckley died. i never thought that i would have to carry on without him out there, reminding me why i'm doing it, poetically pep talking me at 3 AM, sweaty phone pressed to my ear. i was such a child then, and there are so many things i wish i could have done differently, things i wish i could change. but mostly, i wish he was still around so we could look back and laugh, saying "remember? remember when i was so young and confused by love and acted like an idiot?... forgive me?" i wish he could hear the songs i write now, the voice that i only found after he left. i wish i could hear the songs that he would write now, at forty, with all that unlived life redeemed. he had so much more to live.

Currently listening : Live at Sin-é By Jeff Buckley Release date: 02 September, 2003

7:37 PM - 4 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

i go both ways

i just want to acknowledge here that it goes both ways; it's not all woe-is-me 24/7 around here. really! it's just that when i am feeling unreasonably jubilant, when i am reeling in disbelief of my good fortune in this life (like tonight), i don't tend to feel the overwhelming urge to blog.

and anyway, i love my melancholy. when a sad mood strikes or a song makes me cry or the futility of our short small lives somehow smacks me suddenly in the face, i relish that as much as i do a perfect, fun, bliss-riding, smile-overdosing kind of day like i had today.

so, let it be known! i know how ridiculously blessed i am. it does not suck to be me. i am cherishing my blessings, hour by hour.

Currently listening : Speak Slow By Tegan & Sara Release date: 15 February, 2005

7:06 PM - 9 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

i will follow you into the dark

i've been singing death cab for cutie's perfect i will follow you into the dark through tears in candlelight. poorly fingerpicking on a cheap classical guitar. the rumble of new york's millions beyond my window sharpening the flavor of my isolation. do you ever think about how insane it all is? these short lives, and yet how uncreative we often are with them. our utter freedom, and yet how we jail ourselves so willingly. my little jailbreaks are private triumphs: a dismantled belief, a disillusionment, a slowed-down 60 seconds, a snap-back into the present from a wild, speculatory ride into an ever-looming future. tonight my life is an impossible jigsaw puzzle, unsolved and scattered in the thousand familiar, well-worn pieces i never seem to figure out how to fit together.

Currently listening : Live at Massey Hall 1971 By Neil Young Release date: 13 March, 2007

8:13 PM - 9 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

afterglow

it was so good to be back. of course i felt like shit before the show. i always do. i don't get so much nervous as pessimistic and grumpy and no fun to be around. then the gig, the singing, the guard falling, the energetic exchange with the audience, and it's like alchemy. the dark cloud around me turns to a warm embracing glow.

i played a lot of new songs, and i fucked up on a lot of them - it was the first time they'd been played for an audience and they were like adolescents, clumsy and self-conscious. but i am excited about them. i am excited to be entering a new phase. the choreography phase ending, something new emerging.

interestingly, it felt familiar and yet simultaneously entirely novel up there onstage tonight. in india i developed a certain freedom with my voice, which translates to more improvising within the songs; something that i never felt so comfortable with before but happened naturally tonight. also, there is a certain space that one must get into as a performer of music, you can feel it: when you are 'on', in the groove, in the zone. it's a kind of surrender but a very powerful feeling at the same time. tonight it was interesting to notice that i felt very vulnerable and a little shy and awkward onstage, but that didn't keep me from accessing that place in myself in the songs. maybe it even helped, i don't know. there is power in vulnerabilty.

♥
lauren

10:15 PM - 8 Comments - 18 Kudos - Add Comment

welcome to america

it's so weird to be back. it's like the more i travel, the less i belong anywhere. i am an alien in my own land. haven't i always been? i've always felt an outsider here. the funny thing is, in pune i felt i had found my people. a part of me relaxed and came to the surface, finally feeling safe enough to emerge. but it was so intense, to have so much bounty of belonging. my identity, so wrapped up in being unfitting and different, struggled with the shift in scenery and finally, fled.

i had a lover there, and he was beautiful. our time together was intense and present and wild and quiet and soft and magical. the more i fell in love with him, the more i fell in love with myself. he made me beautiful. he woke up parts of me. opened them. loved them... and now? i feel i am closing. there is no one here to appreciate my beauty and so it hides itself. and there is no one here for me to adore, and so i lose my inspiration. the world looks a little more blurry and sad.

hmmm... are my blogs always a bit depressed?... i was sitting with friends the other day and we were telling stories from our youth and adolesence - early boyfriends and girlfriends, awkward kisses and sloppy parties - and i saw suddenly how many of my tales met a dark end: one early crush later became schizophenic and, in a severly deluded episode, killed one of his own family members. another boyfriend from when i was fifteen killed himself three years later. the bandmate of a later boyfriend was recently found with his wife and two children all dead in their own basement, their throats slit by a group of reckless and unskilled young thieves. and of course jeff...

when i was traveling with my israeli friends in rajastan, they would tell stories of revelries and adventures, and we all laughed and enjoyed. but i kept quiet. what to tell? the time when i took acid at fourteen, drove my mother's car into a tree, and wound up in a mental facility for a month? or how about when i found myself at 17 in the ghetto in new orleans, drunk, seperated from my friends, smoking crack on a curb? yeah, exciting stories, but kinda fucked up. i don't even know who that person was, but she wasn't happy. i have spent the years since then, my twenties, trying to step out of that shadow, to unchain the weight of that unhappiness. but my god, it's not easy.

in pune, i found new tools. ways to unlock places in me i couldn't access before. i am so thankful for that. old wounds that had been covered up with numbness and despair were unearthed, acknowledged, and gently released.

these are things that i learned that i really should do every day: dance. wear something beautiful. sing. give compliments. smile. stop for a moment to feel everything that is happening right now. make eye contact and hold it. hug. do something that scares me.

now i'm going to take a bath, unpack for the first time in three and a half months, and sleep in my own bed. wow. the joy of little things!!

xo
lauren

6:56 PM - 11 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment