Books |
Brandi Carlile: Broken Horses
By
Published: Apr 04, 2021
Category:
Memoir
This is how “Broken Horses,” Brandi Carlile’s memoir, begins:
The Carliles are nail-biters. I started biting my nails at three years old. Everyone told me that if I didn’t keep my hands out of my mouth, I’d get sick.
I contracted meningococcal meningitis at age four.
We were living in Burien, Washington, in a single-wide trailer near the Sea-Tac Airport.
It was our third house since I was born.
Her life proceeds exactly as you’d expect. The “mean, scrappy little trailer girl with the wrong clothes” isn’t a good student. She is a Jesus freak. “I struggled to get along with other kids and spent a lot of time worrying about being poor. I tried to make my singing the thing about me that would get me some attention.” High school dropout. A “lesbian of faith.” Singing in restaurants around Seattle. Waitress.
A very ambitious waitress — during breaks, she’d ask people for their numbers. Before gigs, she’d make 400 calls. People came to hear her. She teamed up with Phil and Tim Hanseroth, identical twins, gifted guitarists, extravagantly tall. “Give me a year,” she told them, “and I’ll get us out of this town.”
Flash forward thirty years. Brandi Carlile has recorded a song that is widely played, much praised, her signature.
The Story sells and sells. She’s the headliner at the Beacon Theater in New York. The show is sold out. 99.9% women. At one point she asks, “What would you like?” A woman shouts, “Take off your pants!” Cheering follows.
Around that time, I interview her. This is the key exchange:
JK: Early in 1964, Bob Dylan wrote:
I am now famous
I am now famous by the rules of public famiousity
it snuck up on me
an pulverized me…
I never knew what was happenin
it is hard for me t walk down the same streets
I did before the same way because now
I truly dont know
who is waitin for my autograph..
It seems this is starting to happen to you. Do you have any genius ways to stay connected to who you were before the audiences got big?
BC: I don’t echo Dylan’s sentiment. Perhaps he was such a pioneer that fame marginalized him. I’m not sure I’ll ever be famous by anyone’s definition. I can only hope to be allowed by the audience to continue my life’s work.
Flash forward another decade. She’s at the Grammys, delivering a song that speaks to everyone who has ever been The Other and still bears the scars, which is to say: everyone in the audience, and just about everyone you know, and likely you, and certainly me. [“The Joke” is on “By the Way, I Forgive You.” To buy it from Amazon and get a free MP3 download, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]
From the audience reaction — they had audiences then — and the comments on YouTube, the ending is the most unforgettable moment since Prince tossed his guitar skyward at the MTV Awards and it didn’t come down. Watch:
Brandi Carlile is now 40, married, with two daughters and six Grammys. She is beyond huge, she’s annointed. The living embodiment of “present.” She’s on the speed dial of the greats. Elton. Barak. Joni. Which changes everything.
The first half of Keith Richards’ memoir, which was worth every penny of the $7 million advance, stalls once the Stones got famous, because once you’re famous the interesting part of your struggle — the part we can all identify with — is over. And so it is with “Broken Horses.” Most of it is compelling. She has nothing, she follows her heart, she gets somewhere. Her producer says her new album lacks a hit; she writes “The Joke” in 30 minutes. She includes the lyrics of her songs, and a winsome collection of photos.[To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle, click here. For the audio book, read by the author, click here.]
But toward the end, there’s a turn. She’s singing in Joni’s living room, with Joni. Calls from Elton, who suggests a lesbionic title. The Obamas. There’s a story that sums it up for me. A tight end — a rookie — makes a fantastic catch and scores a touchdown. In the end zone, he jukes, does a flip, spikes the ball. When he returns to the bench, the coach waves him over. “I think the idea,” the coach says, “is to look like you’re been there before.” But Carlile can’t believe her good fortune. She spikes the ball again and again, even when she’s clearly accepted in the celebrity bubble.
Just when you start to despair that Brandi Carlile has become the punchline of an old joke — “Affected? Moi?”— life intrudes. Politics. COVID. She’s forced back into herself. Into the best of herself. This book. New songs. The work. Words and music.
