Jane Siberry

[meredith <meth@smoe.org>]

Hi!

Stuart responded:

>>  SO, who is Jane?  Thank you all a lot,
>
>A lot of people on the list like Jane Siberry. No she doesn't have a song 
>or album called Little Earthquakes. I haven't heard her, but I read 
>through some of her lyrics at http://archive.uwp.edu and I thought they 
>were good. She comes very highly recommended and I've been meaning to 
>pick up one of her albums.

Gack, Stuart, I'm disappointed in you!!!  All these years of watching
various people gush about Jane, and you haven't even checked her out once???  :)

Jane Siberry is a Canadian singer, songwriter, storyteller, videomaker etc.
to whom the label "quirky" has been pasted for the past 15 years or so now.
Her voice could be an acquired taste, though to those already accustomed to
early Kate it's not too much of a stretch (not to imply that Jane sounds
like Kate, she really doesn't, but their vocal chords were probably made in
the same plant).  She achieved quite a bit of fame in Canada in the mid-80's
with her albums _The Speckless Sky_ and _No Borders Here_, and a particular
single called "Mimi On The Beach".  _The Walking_ is considered by many to
be her masterpiece, though I daresay her 1993 album _When I Was A Boy_ blows
all else out of the water.  In the past couple of years she's turned in a
jazzier direction -- last year's _Maria_ is very much a jazz album -- and in
her recent performances she's brought her musicians from _Maria_ along with
her to do really cool things with her older and newer material.  She hasn't
forgotten her roots, though -- she just put out an album called _Teenager_
(the first release on her own Sheeba label), that is made up of recent
recordings of the first songs she ever wrote, some of which are more than 20
years old.  Great stuff.

For tons more info, check out http://www.sheeba.ca.  Do pay special
attention to the lyrics -- Jane's got a true gift with words.  Some of my
all-time favorite lines of poetry are from "At The Beginning Of Time", from
_When I Was A Boy_:

"at the beginning of time
before there were waves
we'd sit in our boats
we'd float there all day

"and there weren't any waves
cuz there wasn't any wind
cuz there wasn't any sun
we were waiting for the world to begin

"we were waiting in the darkness

"each in our own boat
each in our own thoughts
sometimes you could hear people 
talking amongst themselves but...
(someone had a boat with wheels and I said
you're a bit early but I know how you feel)
but mostly it was just silence

"and the silence only broken by
the absence of the clinking of the masts
and every now and then a bird would not fly by
and someone would look up and say 
what wasn't that ?"

Hope this helps!


+==========================================================================+
| Meredith Tarr                                              meth@smoe.org |
| Boonton, NJ USA                       http://remus.rutgers.edu/~woj/meth |
+==========================================================================+
|  "There's a god out there, and god I wish it was mine" - Susan McKeown   |
+==========================================================================+