"The trick is if you listen to that music and you see me, you're not getting anything out of it. If you listen to that music and you see yourself, it will probably make you cry and you'll learn something about yourself and now you're getting something out of it, you know." - Joni Mitchell, CBC Interview (2013)
I often receive a message or comment from a listener who has taken a lyric or poem of mine literally. It happens so frequently that I decided to write this blog post. Joni says it all. While my experience does live and breathe in all of my art, my songs are stories of collective experience, written with imagination and empathy, adorned with my observations and memories. To look at a painting and only see the painter gives your eyes no new knowledge. Where George Harrison said to let out your heart from behind that locked door, I am saying that art is mirror and to let in the reflection of yourself who stares you back.