Talking To...Emily Maguire
EM: Emily Maguire
HM: Helen Mitchell
HM: Is it harder writing personal songs?
EM: I don’t set out to write something specific. Sometimes I start something and it ends up being about someone or something entirely different from what it was in the beginning. I guess we’re all similar. The human condition is to be happy and content; they are the common desires that bind us. Sometimes I feel that songs come through me not from me. For example, after I read a book called The Bridges of Madison County, the song Somewhere in the Blue literally fell out of my head in five minutes. I don’t know where it comes from but it is a wonderful thing.
HM: Do they ever come along at awkward times?
EM: (laughs) I’ve learned to carry a notebook with me everywhere I go. I could be anywhere when a line comes to me.
HM: is it hard to go back to something you’ve written down?
EM: I have to work at them and craft them. Some songs I might work on for months. Songs are all about the lyrics, to me, so they have to be right.
HM: I agree about the lyrics. It’s amazing when you hear a song and think ‘Wow, that’s exactly how I feel.’
EM: Exactly. You can say things in a song that you wouldn’t in everyday life. That’s why they are so powerful. To be able to describe someone’s feelings for them is amazing – people do have great feelings and don’t always know what they are until they hear a song. The songs become theirs as they can think ‘That song is about me.’ All of my favourite songs are about me!
HM: That’s funny, Gretchen Peters says that, about the songs becoming the listener’s.
EM: Absolutely. I’ve just thought, one of the songs on the new CD, Believer, isn’t intended to be religious. Believer is a word associated with Christianity, or maybe Islam, don’t you think?
HM: I hadn’t picked it up that way at all. I didn’t think it was related to religion. I think the word ‘believer’ has so much wider a meaning – like believing in yourself and in others. Having faith, perhaps, not necessarily in a religious sense.
EM: Oh, that’s interesting and I’m glad you didn’t take it that way. To me Believer is about having faith, hope and belief in the future. After all the first line on the whole CD is ‘If I have faith...’ There are so mnay things we can’t see, Helen, but we have to believe; that things will be okay, and how they e meant to be. I’m a great believer in the power of positive thought – I spend an hour and a half each day meditating which reminds me that it is all about potential – we have to believe that we have potential within ourselves and potential out in the universe – after all that’s what we all want at the end of the day.
HM: Yeah, I guess it is what we all want, what we’re all searching for in a way...part of that greater purpose...
EM: Yeah.
HM: Emily, can I ask if you are missing Australia?
EM: I’m a little homesick. When the weather turns to Autumn here it’s spring there – but then I remember that spring means snakes!
HM: Oh, yes, how is Dudley?
EM: (laughs) Dudley is still there at the shack - he moved into the house and sits on the table, lording it up! You can see a picture on my blog on the website.
HM: tell us about the shack.
EM: Well, the shack is made from recycled materials, built around three massive tree trunks, with tin on the roof and the walls are potato sacks. There is no heating and I love it. We get lots of creatures; there’s a family of hairy spiders and I have a snake that sleeps by the bed; we evicted it once and it came back. I still can’t believe I’ve gone from so snake phobic I couldn’t look at one on TV, to having one by the bed! We have a goat farm by the shack – it’s like living on a different planet. You know, one of the strange laws in Queensland is that you can’t use a mobile phone on horseback.
HM: (laughs) How bizarre. There is a state in the USA, I forget which, where you can’t drive with ice cream in your back pocket.
EM: Wow, that’s mad. Who would want to?!
HM: I know! There was a book where this guy went out to the States and tried to break all of the silly laws. I forget the name now...
HM: Do they still have rodeos out there?
EM: Yes, the Kennilworth Rodeo is still a big event.
HM: Don’t you think it’s cruel?
EM: I think there is a huge amount of cruelty to animals all over the world. I heard the other day that there are only 3,800 tigers in the whole world, according to the WWF. Imagine that, if there were no more tigers.
HM: That’s pretty scary. So, tell me about making cheese.
EM: Yes, I was a cheesemaker, back in Australia, to pay for my last album, Keep Walking.
HM: Or Keep Miliking?!
EM: (laughs) It’s funny, I went from being a bad cook to being a great cheesemaker. It’s all about perfection. I made a great Feta – the best in Australia. I can say that now as no one can dispute me, here!
HM: What do you prefer, singing or cheesemaking?
EM: I’d rather play guitar than stir milk for a living!