"People kept saying, 'Do you know it's going to be 30 years? You need to do a tour.' I [said], 'No, it's not been 30 years.' I did the math, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh.' Then I talked to my management. They're like, 'Yeah, you should do a tour. Let's do it.'"
In recalling the making of her third album, 1993's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Sarah McLachlan had no initial thoughts that it would be her breakthrough. Rather, she remembers the period of writing and recording as a time of a new personal outlook. "I was unencumbered," she tells Newsweek. "I was single for the first time in my adult life for a good chunk of time. I just felt very free. It felt like a joyful light process."
McLachlan had established herself in her native Canada with her sophomore album, 1991's Solace, but Fumbling was the work that really introduced her to a wider audience, especially in the U.S. where the record has since sold 3 million copies. Followed by diligent touring, Fumbling was the prelude for McLachlan's mainstream success a few years later with her next record Surfacing and the launch of the Lilith Fair festival that she co-founded.
The idea of celebrating Fumbling via this new tour came from people McLachlan knew who reminded her about its approaching milestone. To mark the record's anniversary, McLachlan is embarking on a North American tour that will see her perform the album from start to finish, beginning May 23 in Vancouver. A dollar per ticket will go to the nonprofit Sarah McLachlan School of Music that provides free music education for kids and youth facing barriers to access.
Opening for her tour will be two fellow Canadian musicians, Feist and Allison Russell. "I've tried to have other women open up for me or play with other women," McLachlan says. "And this is a wonderful opportunity to get to know them better, to hear their music. I'm a huge fan of both of their music."
The 'Easiest' Work
The tour is also an opportunity to revisit an album that McLachlan describes as the easiest work she wrote. She felt she could take more artistic chances in making Fumbling without any previous burdens: "My first record [1988's Touch] was critically acclaimed, and it didn't sell that well, but I had some success," she says. "With the second record [Solace], you're like, 'OK, now you have to step it up.' With the third, there was just kind of a feeling of like, 'You know what? Just do what you're going to do. Make the record you want to make,' which is a huge luxury. I was given tons of creative freedom. I think that was part of the success of it, and certainly part of the joy of making it—that I didn't feel as much pressure and could just be free to try and discover who I was."
For the album, McLachlan worked with Pierre Marchand, who previously produced Solace and would go on to helm several of her subsequent releases. "Pierre gave me a real foundation of allowing me to figure out who I was," she says. "One of the most important things he said to me was, 'I know you can sing high in all these different ways, but I wanna hear what you really sound like.' So he pushed me into my lower register, and I think that I really found my voice at that point."
Accompanied by lush instrumentation and atmospherics, the lyrics on Fumbling run the gamut of emotions: from isolation, angst and melancholy to yearning and hope sung in McLachlan's gorgeous, lustrous voice. "For me, every song is about walking down a new path that I haven't walked down before," she says. "Early on, too, I was trying to figure out who I was and tell stories about that...breakups, relationships, how I was in the world."
Sharing Her Experiences
One example of McLachlan drawing from her real-life experiences was the haunting "Possession," the album's opening track. It was the singer's response to an obsessive fan who was stalking her. "It was terrifying for me," she says "I didn't understand it."
Another single from Fumbling, the soulful ballad "Good Enough," was, according to McLachlan, about a woman's abusive relationship. "This is my dear friend. I love her, and she's in a really sh**** relationship. And I'm like, 'You deserve so much better than this.' So it's about friendships for me, but also about trying to show someone that they are worth more than what they can see themselves."
The gut-wrenching and moving "Hold On" came about after McLachlan saw a documentary about a young woman who lost her husband to AIDS. "The love story in it was really inspiring to me," she recalls, "her dedication to him and her love for him. It was beautiful and tragic. I was sort of overcome by it, and the song came from that experience."
In contrast, the somewhat whimsical "Ice Cream," which has since been a staple of McLachlan's live shows, provides a respite from the emotional tumult of Fumbling's preceding songs. The singer said that the track barely made it on the record. "I was still very young at the time, and I wanted to be taken seriously," she explains. "I felt it was kind of too glib and light. But Pierre, once again, in his wisdom, was like, 'You know, you need some lightness [laughs]. This is part of who you are.' He encouraged me to not be afraid to show that side of myself."
Fumbling's final two tracks, the aching "Fear" and the anthemic title song, not only juxtapose feelings of helplessness and bravery respectively, but they perfectly sum up the themes of the record. "I think that I'm very drawn to the darker side of life," says McLachlan. "I've always found it incredibly cathartic to write about my challenges. But I'm a very hopeful person. So, for me, it's always been important to, for the most part, instill some hope in my lyrics because that is a big part of who I am. Even though I'm drawn to darker themes, it's like I need to explore those so that I can get back to my happy place, basically [laughs]."
McLachlan remembers the period following the release of Fumbling as one of heavy touring for two years, which heightened her profile with American audiences. "My manager [Terry McBride] in his wisdom was like, 'Just keep touring. Your approach to success is playing live.' And I don't think he was wrong there. I'd go and play to a couple hundred people, and to 1,000 people and then to 2,000 people. Every time I'd come back to a market, I'd play to more people and really build up a solid fan base that way."
Supporting Women
The critical and commercial reception surrounding Fumbling Towards Ecstasy set the stage for the massive success of the singer's next album, Surfacing, in 1997. Coinciding its release was the memorable female-centered Lilith Fair touring festival, which McLachlan co-founded and headlined.
"I'm thrilled," she says of Lilith's legacy. "I was so happy and honored to be a part of that—to have so many other women believe in it and want to get on board. We all elevated each other. That's how we survive, endure and thrive in society. All the systems in this world have been built by men for men. And this was a way of disrupting that. I'm so, so proud of it."
As McLachlan is revisiting the past for her upcoming retrospective tour, she is also looking ahead with new music—her last album of all-original material, Shine On, was released in 2014. "I am seriously working away at a new record," she says. "We're sort of having to do it piecemeal because my producers [have] got a bunch of other projects going at the same time, as do I. So we're just trying to pencil each other in every chance we get."
Even though it's now been 35 years since the release of her debut record Touch, McLachlan says she still feels like a 12-year-old in the context of her long music career. "I still pinch myself every day for this incredible life that my music has given me," she says. "I never thought that far ahead. I never really thought about what success might look like. And this has been just an incredible ride. I am so grateful for all of it. And that after 35 years, I still get to make music and people still want to come hear me sing. It's just fantastic."
Further Listening
Touch
Nettwerk, 1988
After her time with the Halifax, Nova Scotia, band the October Game, McLachlan released her debut album when she was about 20. Her mix of alternative pop and folk offered glimpses of a star in the making with her expressive and delicate voice and poetic lyrics that hearkened Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush; highlights include "Out of the Shadows," "Steaming" and the exuberant "Vox."
Solace
Nettwerk, 1991
McLachlan's sophomore effort Solace is notable for two things: it contained the standout tracks in the dramatic-sounding "Into the Fire" and the soulful and gentle "Path of Thorns (Terms)." It also marked the first time she worked with producer Pierre Marchand, kicking off a longtime musical collaboration that has lasted through several subsequent albums.
Surfacing
Arista, 1997
Along with spearheading the launch of the Lilith Fair festival, McLachlan further solidified her popularity with her fourth and most accessible album yet. Surfacing was a U.S. smash success, reaching No. 2 on Billboard and eventually selling 8 million copies. Its singles were also inescapable on radio and MTV—among them "Building a Mystery," "Sweet Surrender," "Adia" and the ballad "Angel," which has arguably become the singer's signature song and covered by such artists as Brandi Carlile, Emmylou Harris and Allison Russell.
Afterglow
Arista, 2003
Afterglow came six years after Surfacing, during which time McLachlan married and became a mother. Like its predecessor, the record also peaked at No. 2 on Billboard augmented by the singles "Fallen," "World on Fire" and "Stupid." In a 2003 New York Times interview, she recalled the panic of making it "in this fog of being a new mother and thinking, 'Oh, God, I've got to get this record out.'"
Shine On
Verve, 2014
Not counting the 2016 holiday album Wonderland, Shine On is McLachlan's most recent studio album of all original material. Released in the wake of her father's death and the dissolution of her marriage, McLachlan characterized the record (with its singles "Monsters" and "In Your Shoes") as hopeful. "Going through all this stuff and finding a way to feel at peace with all of it, that's the place I'm in," the singer told CBC Radio at the time.
David Chiu is a freelance music reporter. Follow him on X @newbeats
Updated 05/02/2024 8:44 ET: Information was added about the Sarah McLachlan School of Music.
