Today’s Perk Me Up Best Songs A-Z Round 1 – Today’s letter is S. Sweet Surrender by Sarah McLachlan from 1998. I would have picked this song anyways for today’s best song for S because I always thought this one is a great song. Really cool production and mood to the track. But I have a slightly bittersweet, but cool little personal story to tell as background to today’s song. I met Sarah McLachlan at least a few times for very short durations in my life. She started out as a coffee server in a coffee shop or bar in Vancouver and I, having a good memory for faces, I remember her serving me coffee 3 or 4 times, at least, when the world only knew her as a coffee server and nothing else. I barely talked much more than a couple of words to her and that was okay. She was a coffee server and I was a coffee drinker but I remember her – nice style with the public. I’m pretty sure it was her. Anyways, as time went by her music career started to develop and take off locally. In the practice space where my band was developing into the Shape (a huge old warehouse in Gastown), one of the other bands guitarists in the warehouse was just about in the process of building a musical career as a lead guitarist in Sarah McLachlan’s band but that was not to be a long term permanent job for him – maybe he might have lasted a year in her band as she was building steam and rising to national and soon international attention. Anyways at this particular time, I was starting to read local articles about this independent artist who recorded for Nettwork Records and was getting terrific PR support from her label and getting rave reviews from the local press as a great talent of a singer and I took note of this girl but never knew anything about the music she made until the breakthrough album she released just before this album with the hit single Sweet Surrender. One night there was a party going on at a place where one of the guys from a local group called The Jazzmanian Devils lived and there were a huge number of local struggling but rising and important musicians of merit at this party. The total creativity and talent of the people collectively at this party would have been staggering. At least 2 or 3 other member s of The Shape were there that night and maybe other musicians I knew well personally all the way to many I knew well only by face and some who I really hardly knew at all. One of the people who was there that night was Sarah McLachlan. I had no idea she would be there and shewas kind of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend kind of thing. I met Sarah and very briefly had a very nice introduction and discussion. She seemed very happy to be at that party that night. She kind of had a glow that I remember that stood out in the pack of people there that night. A huge beaming beautiful smile. Like she was REALLY enjoying the experience of being alive and being at this particular party. It had a refreshing tone of being ALIVE, relaxed and she seemed to be sucking in the vibes of the pleasure of that moment in life that I remember as one of the main characteristics I witnessed that night. The short conversation I had that night was sort of showing signs of being slightly flirty with a strong eye connection between us – but it also was of total innocence as well – two strangers meeting. A very out of the ordinary experience in life but it felt totally natural and real – a very comfortable feeling. The feeling you get when something could – not necessarily ever does happen – but could, and it struck me personally at that moment as very special - for all of ten minutes. This is the feeling I got as I was a local guy on my way up and Sarah was also on her way up locally but was receiving more attention presswise than I was at the time, but she was still very unknown by the masses but very well known in underground music circles. Anyways we ended up being kind of like ships that passed in the night because I had a friend, a female who I won’t mention her name presently, only because I’m not sure she wants to be publicly exposed in this story. Anyways, she was living common-law with a guy that virtually was her husband in life but, at the time, she was getting a strongdesire to have a female best buddy in her life for friend companionship and she was in this mode of finding a buddy at the time and as I was talking and slowly getting to know Sarah, this girl was very aggressively kind of in a “setup buddy – mode” situation where she was really trying to get all of Sarah’s attention, so like ship’s in the night, I really didn’t get the opportunity to know Sarah better. She seemed like a terrific person to get to know better and I wish I had at least been some kind of friend – who knows in life -we could have ended up being hot and heavy or just been buddies or maybe some musical collaboration could have occurred one day between us somehow or maybe not – maybe nothing significant would have happened at all. Just one of those situations in life where anything at all is possible at that particular moment of building new bridges and who knows where it leads – if anywhere. I enjoyed meeting Sarah. It was very powerful, very nice and relaxed, very brief and, literally was the closest thing I ever remember in my lifetime to relate exactly to the phrase” two ships that pass in the night”. I would never meet her again to this day and within 2 or 3 years she was starting to become an international star. Six or seven years after we met – I heard Sweet Surrender on the radio and when I hear the mood in this song – I remember that girl on her way up at that party – so sweet she seemed to me for a brief moment in time. This song really fits my memory. It’s not as sweet a memory, as a song, as that moment was at that party, but it’s a powerful song that is of Sarah McLachlan the same woman I met. Love the cool processed guitar sound in this song. What a sweet song this is. Sarah stated the roots of the song came from watching the movie Leaving Las Vegas and was a both beautiful and tragic love story about 2 completely different people who accept the both the beautiful and ugly things about each other totally as what and who they are. She felt the hook of the song for her was being able to be loved by someone , warts and all – especially when YOU feel unlovable creating a comfort within YOU that is wonderful. I could have chosen her regularly released video and 4 different live versions of the song – each with different styles and looks for Sarah – each video with strengths and weaknesses comparative to another video. Oddly enough, watching her live performances and listening to the studio recording of the song stirs up much of my old creative juices ad makes me want to go back and release new tunes. This particular song is not all that far away from the style of song I could have released – especially the chorus chords. The chorus is so much in my style of chording. Remarkable actually. Sarah, you make me wanna go back into the studio and cut some new tracks. Maybe the odd one might be slightly similar to a song like Sweet Surrender. I will post the official video in the comments section below with the great studio sound of the song but the main post I want to do is her live at the Beacon Theatre this year and the sound ain’t great, but I wanted to post a video of hers that looked the closest to Sarah when I met her at a party. The length of her hair was either slightly shorter or longer than this video – she had great hair – a lot more body than you usually see in her hair that evening at the party and she was wearing not too much makeup that night. Very pretty. The problem with a lot of Sarah’s famous work is that she often has that short haired slightly teenage girl waif look and I didn’t meet that Sarah – I met what looked TO ME like a REAL woman. So this the closest look I can find to the ten minute or so meeting/ slight conversation I had with her. She’s obviously an older woman in this 2014 video than the almost girl/woman I met but very attractive in it – moreso than she usually appears in her videos etc and that natural beauty in this video was part of my recollection of her from the evening we met briefly. youtube/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZK2giYwTB2w
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 19:51:50 +0000
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