Your Soul is Anchored

Author's Rating:

Pros: The passion is clear in each note without a single gimmick, consistent quality.

Cons: I have no reasonable complaints.

Author's Review
My hypnosis began with Into the Fire. I turned up the indie radio station as I zipped along Austin's I-35. Who is that?

When Fumbling Towards Ecstasy was released, I was in that gentle state somewhere between being favourably aware of an artist and madly buying up everything they produced. This CD swung me into the latter camp, now and forever, amen. Strangely, I haven't heard anything she's done since. The evils of generally being away from radio and television, I suppose.

But this was the the recording which put Ms. McLachlan firmly in my pocket. She can just snuggle on in there with Pre-90s Stevie Nicks, Maire Brennan, pre-over-exhaling Tori Amos, Heather Nova, and Loreena McKennitt. These are the songs which make you say, "She may never be as good as this again, she may eventually become quite terrible, but for this she is exalted forever."

Possession
If you hadn't heard Sarah before, you looked up when this track came on. Straightforward singing with a beat just modern enough to fit in, but not slick and produced beyond usefulness. Of course we all sit forward a bit and wait for the cry, the near spin-stop of the music to ring out "and I won't be denied" as the world collapses and reforms and rolls on. Like the Police's Every Breath You Take, it's alarming when you become fully cognizant of the lyrics' implication.

favourite lyric: Oh into the sea of waking dreams, I follow without pride. 'Cause nothing stands between us here, and I won't be denied.

Wait
A dozy little ballad with a chorus rising periodically above with such lightness it is almost indistinguishable from the flow of the verses. Soft pat-pat-pats are not unlike a mild summer rain. Simple, pleasant and soothing.

Plenty
The background do-do's are strangely similar to Paula Cole's hit, Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?, I think it's called. It's what makes this song addictive. Another slowish mild piece with an unobtrusive yet provocative beat. The song of love unexpectedly lost doesn't feel like 4 minutes. It slips in and out of the playlist so easily. It's the one I forget I like until I hear it.

Good Enough
Another which saw a great deal of airplay when I was living in Austin. Strong lyrics giving us what I might describe as "Lesbian Cowgirl Blues." My interpretation of the theme may be way off base. Heck, you know how songs are. I may not even be hearing what everyone else heard. (Cranberry Sauce vs I Buried Paul, anyone?) I picture a woman who has been abused my her male partner. She cries on the shoulder of her friend, Sarah, but crying seems to be the problem, because that's all she's doing instead of getting it together and getting out. When Sarah tries to give the woman the trust, friendship, affection the woman deserved from her mate, the woman remains focused on what she wasn't getting from her husband/lover instead. A soft song, a little plain in the beginning, graceful and swaying towards the end. I get sick of it more quickly than the others, but always come back to it eventually.

favourite lyric: so just let me try, and I will be good to you

Mary
There is almost a popping Caribbean aspect to the beat, with an occasional quiet electric piano sound. It's a "casual story" sort of song. Almost spoken, the verses are delivered like offhand remarks in passing. I'm not wild about the chorus. It has the usual "Sarah-sound" of sweet voice and mild rhythm, but the handling is too spoken for my taste, too stilted.

Elsewhere
This could be a hymn. I'm not sure which church would adopt it, but I'd attend if they did. The first time I heard it, I was working on a project regarding the Great Schism and researching the differences between Eastern Orthodox, Western Orthodox, and Roman Catholic faiths. (None of which I'm terribly familiar with as a rule.) So the repetition of I believe... seemed so reminiscent of the creeds, particularly with the references to heaven. In this song Sarah is particularly strong in her unique talent of displaying passion and changing tone, but without casting her voice all over the place.

favourite lyric: I know this love is passing time, passing through like liquid and I'm... I am drunk in my desire... but I love the way you smile at me, I love the way your hands reach out and hold me near... I believe...

Circle
I don't care for the short cackle opening the song. It seems fake and incongruous. I understand that it was helping to set a mood, but it rubs me the wrong way and probably makes me a touch prejudiced. If there is any song on this album (do we still call them albums?) which has a kind of funky mood (as in "get down and sing it" not "Soul Train" or the modern equivalent). Don't get me wrong, sometimes I quite like bobbing my head and singing along and getting jiggy with it. Especially if I come in after that laugh. It's not really a dance song, not that it would be a problem if it were. It's just a hard to pin down song which develops into a bounceable song.

Ice
For me, the most elegant and stirring piece here. The one I could play over and over again. One of the few songs where the lyrics make me think of scenery as much as feelings and people. The tone is hauntingly beautiful, the slow notes always clear, even in anguish. Even more merciful than Peter Gabriel's Mercy, and I'm not surprised she has covered his work. The background choir are surely mundane angels there to lift but not be so generous to uplift as well. But to instead bear you down the river into the wet black jungle where you once left yourself, maybe 200 years ago or yesterday.

favourite lyric: all, but especially: your angels speak with jilted tongues, the serpent's tale has come undone you have no... strength to squander

Hold On
This was a radio favourite to which I remain largely indifferent. (Following, Ice, did it have a chance?) Whereas I usually enjoy the recognizable Sarah-sound (plain beginning, light beat, launching into a more full sound but keeping the semi-conversational style), that's all this song feels like to me. It doesn't bother me, but it doesn't call me to twist up the volume.

Ice Cream
Is she really singing about ice cream? And chocolate? I suppose she really does tackle the important women's issues! Love and chocolate. Yes, telling someone their love is better than chocolate is one of the romantic things you can say. At least when it comes from me. I really enjoy the sing-song of this one. It could be a campfire song. I suppose I'm also impressed with how in so few words she can paint the picture of many women having similar experiences which feel very individual and lonely at the time, i.e. "everyone here knows how to cry."

Fear
The reason I was inspired to pluck this CD off the shelf and review it. The other weekend I was out of town and while mindless flipped between the sparse selection of motel room channels, I caught a few minutes of the end of a Sandra Bullock movie which used this song. It reminded me that this would be the song for a movie about the Greek goddess Persephone. Maybe's it's the flower/vine reference. Sarah sings this one in a strangely strained higher note than usual. Something I generally loathe, but here it displays real... well... real fear. The fear is anguished and searing, then timid and defeated, and is the worst sort of fear: the intangible kind which may all be in your head, and you hope it is, but it's rubbing roughly on you anyway. Do I hear a string section here, perhaps synthesized? The tension is excellent.

favourite lyric: Wind in time... rapes the flower trembling on the vine... nothing yields to shelter it. From above, they say temptation will destroy our love... the never ending hunger.

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
Slow, plaintive, we've collapsed on to the couch. The credit are rolling and we're spent. It's a happy ending. Fear has segued into the matter-of-fact choruses vowing, "I won't fear love." We're not going up and down in this song, we're just going to ride this out until it's time to leave, settled down from the pulls of love, life, the moon, the stars.

And when the air is clear again, and perhaps we're almost asleep but completely awake, someone is alone, softly laying their fingers across the muted piano keys. It's a sweet a capella of the first song, Possession. Nothing ever leaves us. It returns, changed, as we too change, and change everything around us, yet remain the same.