Music is the catalyst for so much, but when you’re someone who makes it, you can sometimes be very black & white about it. You think - well, these albums over here (“Little Earthquakes”, “Blue”, “Hysteria”, “Tapestry”) were great, they were my salvation. And then, once in a while I get to hear that some of my albums were someone else’s salvation. What I’ve learned in the last few years is that there are dozens of other layers to the fabric of being a musician, a music lover, a woman and a human in the world and we can either get lost in it, or awaken to it all.

2005: Funny that I named an album “Songs of Love and Death” when I didn’t have the first clue about either. Lol. But lucky you - today I’m gonna talk about both. First, death.

I don’t know why grief is multi-layered and powerful. I remember visiting my piano teacher, Margaret Fawcett, in the hospital in 1989 when I was 14. She was NOT my favourite person, yet as she lay there in her final weeks of life, I felt compelled to announce at her bedside - very spiritedly and loudly because she couldn’t hear well: “I’m teaching piano now!” She didn’t say much. In her mind, Miss Fawcett may have been disgusted, thinking that I didn’t have the Royal Conservatory credentials to do that. Who knows. But for me, in hindsight, I was telling her that I was going to keep going.

Me at 8, playing piano for my grandmother in the Philippines.

Two-hand tapping on the bass, for me and only me - clearly.

Fast forward almost 20 years, and Greg Lowe passed away. Which I have wrote about a lot. You’ve been patient with me, not knowing the man, but clearly knowing what he meant to me. The Winnipeg guitarist who I met during the Joni play represented love and goodness in a time when the father of my kids had just walked out. I was in no state to be left. I was a veritable tornado - lacking any deep understanding of myself and out of control. (BTW in case anyone was wondering, I think I was secretly writing about myself in “Case of Tornadoes”). Who leaves two children - ages four and six - in the care of a woman who has become a tornado? Someone with poor judgement, that’s who. I wondered how my ex could leave me when I clearly needed his friendship and support so badly. I told him as much. But when someone says they want to move on, you better believe that they do.

FANS

Laura Robeson, the Ohio woman who took her life and Josh Smelser, whose life was taken were both such beautiful music-loving souls. I remember after Laura died, I read her posts about depression and saw that she had made a playlist of all my songs on Spotify. I wished my songs could have given her more solace. And Josh, I looked at him in photos, smiling with my albums…the same smile that stretched across his face when he was hanging out with his pets and the animals he loved. I think of Kathy who wrote to me about Lee, a longtime fan who passed away recently. She wrote to me that he listened to my music while in a coma. He listened while he took his last breath. God. And I think of Mike Kic, who passed away from cancer and how it felt never to see his face at my shows again. I realize that I love my fans, full stop. You are attached to my heart.

In the celebration and reflection of a life, we learn so much about ourselves. The spirit of each of the people I mentioned lives on in me, in my choices, in my hopes and actions. And subconsciously, all of the shifts that life has taken — the monumental, the subtle, the restrictive, the confusing have brought me to this place.

Even as I record my narration for the book I wrote (for the audiobook), I feel like I’m talking to myself. It’s a very unnerving feeling. I’m glimpsing my life in the words, reading between the lines. This sounds a bit dramatic, but let’s face it, look at your own life over the past few years. Has it not been DRAMATIC? It has been heavy. Frustrating. Joyful. Trying. Transformative. You probably aren’t the same person you were in March 2020. Am I right?

Then there’s love. I’ve been searching for it my whole life. Alcohol abuse was a thing in my house when I was growing up. You take the loneliness and isolation that that created for a young girl and throw Casey Kasam’s American Top 40 on the radio in her bedroom and boom - you get a songwriter. That’s what happened. But I also became a songwriter as a mode of survival, and if you haven’t noticed, I have been surviving with the release of every song, every album. You may perceive my career choices as surprising and spontaneous, maybe at times a little confusing. But sometimes I think I have required the music, the process, the routine, the variety just to feel alive and normal.

I think of “Drove Home”, my new single which is coming out soon. I wrote it for Earl Slick - we became close friends after our NYC show at Rockwood and found solace in one another as former bandmates with Bowie. That’s an unbreakable bond and hard to top - or at least I thought it was at the time. Earl had recorded a version of “Hysteria” and asked me to sing on it (I’ll upload it to Rare Songs), and we did things like that - chat about music, make a little of it, talk about David. Oh the Bowie thing - I’ve buried myself in it, used it to prop up my self-worth, been grateful for it, sighed about it….maybe the time with Earl was a way to move on from it, derive something new and different out of the experience than another chat with a journalist about “What Bowie was like.”

Though the relationship with Slick didn’t last (a 22-year age difference and living in different countries didn’t help), it represented my thirst for love. I would look everywhere for it. And I would pretend to see it where it wasn’t present. I would do things like write “Drove Home” as a lullaby and for all its emotional beauty, it would go completely unappreciated by the subject of the song. Maybe he just didn’t know what to do with it. But there comes a time you just zoom out, see that something is a great song and if one person doesn’t “get it”, there will be others who love it like you do.

Here’s the original demo of “Drove Home”.

And here’s the final version.

I’m releasing it September 27.

In the survey I asked you take, some of you talked about wanting to know the process involved in creating a recording. I can’t wait to share more of those stories with you as the new writing I’m doing unfolds. With “Drove Home”, it began as a bedroom demo in 2018, and then was unearthed earlier this year when Joe Corcoran heard it and fell in love with it. He wanted to produce it as part of his end-of-Masters-in-Music-program at Cal State. His changes made the song so much better. Patti Kilroy (who was one of Joe’s teachers at Calstate) played the violin and viola. Gabriel Cabezas played cello. STRINGS!!!! I need more strings in my life.

And now I turn the page.

Now I’m gonna talk about real love. And this is getting personal for a reason, which I’ll fill you in on in future diary entries. After a year or so of working on my book, we were a few months into the pandemic (May 2020). I reached out to the person who acquired my book at ECW Press, Michael Holmes - to ask him about another matter. We had met once for business and I went away to write the book. After this particular email exchange last year, what happened was unexpected and incredible : true love found us both. There, in Michael - who is a writer and poet among many other things, were all the things I was searching for from the scattered days of childhood through to my life as a grown woman. Acceptance, seeing me for me, best friendship. I can see that love actually existed in the world beyond my limited definition of it - which was always wrapped up in distrust, bean-counting, guilt. Love, I finally saw, could nurture my soul and my heart - it wasn’t a weakness. I always thought that once I “succumbed to a relationship”, I’d need to trade being an independent woman and all the rules by which I live. Now I know that nothing could be further from the truth. Carefully, Michael and I navigated the editing of the book. He assigned a writer named Emily Schultz to edit it, and eventually, we let people at the company know we were a thing. That was an awkward Zoom call, but I was proud of myself. When love exists in the world it should not be kept secret. In future entries, I’ll reveal a little about letting Michael into my songwriting world and how it has been the best decision I’ve ever made. I CAN’T WAIT TO SHARE WITH YOU WHAT WE ARE MAKING.

Why do I bring all this up?

Grief, love, the voice, music. The constant through it all has been ALL OF YOU. Your support. The membership fee you pay every month feeds my family, helps pay my bills and feeds my creative soul. The pledges you put in on albums are like votes of confidence when I have been low and full of self-doubt. I take none of it for granted and I’m always blown away. No matter what you’ve given me it’s turned each creative dream into a reality. And the fact that you’re STILL here - reading this. It’s as though you’ve been waiting for me, accepting me. That sounds cheesy, but I feel utterly connected to each of you and I came to this realization slowly over the past months that….it’s time.

. . .

The cursor blinked for a good long while before I started to type again.

I’m returning to Emm.

You may say - what do you mean? Haven’t you always been Emm? Making music, happily - doing your thing?

Yes - but sometimes I’ve been daunted by being an indie artist - something that carried over from the fallout of Mercury Records dropping me. Many things have popped up to colour my world. The distraction of touring with David. The misguided faith in a husband who would end up leaving. The demands of raising little children, one with anxiety. The trials and heartbreak of a roots trio with wildly different women at the helm. The shock of the world stopping. The joy of teaching and coaching. The power of my female friendships. The immense joy that the gay community and my gay fans bring me. The beauty of nature. The power of love to bring me to a place of clarity, vulnerability and truth.

What I’m trying to say is that I’ve done a tonne of soul-searching and I am entering fully back into my music career with the same vigorous spirit as I had 25 years ago. I’m starting again - I’m continuing - however you want to see it. Yes, I’ve been releasing albums and some of them have been great and important and special - but I’ve done it all with the quiet undercurrent of not believing in myself fully. Never believing it’s going to reach anyone.

For too long I have hidden behind things, people, activities and mindsets. For too long, a tour has been “something to do”, and an album “just what I normally do”. Ho-hum. Ingratitude. Going through the motions because well, I’m older. I have hidden behind the “DIY or DIE” badge, navigating life with doubt - like everything after 1998 was a consolation prize. PLEASE NOTE: I didn’t know I was doing this until recently. Since 1998! That’s a long effing time to be talking yourself out of something. In recent months, seeing your faces on Zoom concerts, seeing you during various events, hearing your words, reading your words, following your lives…I noticed that my heart comes alive when I am making music and singing to you. It’s what I want to go out doing.

Your survey answers (see the last email newsletter if you haven’t filled out the survey) were like hands on my back, propping me up and pushing me towards the sunshine. Your answers confirmed what I suspected about myself and my path. You want more music. My music.

I want to be what at 14, I dreamed of always being, when my imagination created a path for myself that was full of fun and creativity. I want to devote the next years to stepping into me like I always wanted to. That means working hard over the next few years to reach more people, share my music, tour more, and record more. Bowie would have loved if I stopped talking about him a bit, so I’ll do that. A billion-dollar merger that took over a record company had nothing to do with me. I know this now. I plan to make this next record in Nashville and journal about my journey. I want my daughter to see me performing when I’m 50, in my element. That doesn’t happen without taking action. I haven’t taken action in a long time. I’ve coasted. I’ll still coach women and creatives because I have a passion for helping others but I’ll sing more, write more, spread the word more.

I ask you to come along with me.

Transparency: I am scared.

Does it make sense? Will it work? What will it look like? Not sure. But love and miracles and music don’t really make a whole lot of sense - do they? Their power, their energy - no one can measure any of it. You can’t see it or touch it or put your arms around it. Sometimes we can’t even describe it.

Here in the Backstage, I’ll share with you how the journey’s going. The good, the bad and the ugly. You’ll get the honest truth. Please interact with me. I need your minds and hearts. My web guru Courtney tells me that you’ll need this link to sign up for the RSS feed which will let you know when I post things here: https://www.emmgryner.com/blog?format=rss

Some things on the horizon:

“Fairground” - I’m bringing an outdoor concert TO YOU online. It might end up being inside, but I’m going to do it anyway. If it sounds mysterious - good! It will feature Jaron Camp and Rachael Frankruyter who have become awesome new members of my band.
Zoom hangs - please see my forthcoming newsletter for information on that.
Kickstarter - YES. I am about to launch the fundraising for the album of my dreams soon so there’s another place we can meet and interact and share ideas.

I remember sitting across from my manager in 1997 at a cafe in Toronto. “I’m quitting my day job”, I said to him, scared out of my wits, tears in my eyes. And in a way, I sort of am again. But this time, no tears.

The world is pressing down on us. There’s anger and hatred and brutality and injustice. Bodies in the ground. Terror on the street. Divisions like there have never been. And so there’s work to do. But we’re all better off if we are doing what we love. And I’m living where I’m free to do so, so to honour those who can’t, I will. Thank you for reminding me of my gift and my purpose, for sticking with me and I promise not to let you down.

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DIARY: SEPTEMBER 8, 2021 "COME ALONG WITH ME"