July 2, 2025 • 54 mins
One of the core values of Buzz Knight Media Productions is supporting the great work of charitable organizations. We love the work of Home Base here in Boston which supports veterans and their families and General Jack Hammond and Dr. Ron Hirshberg do amazing work along with their team. Their podcast is called Home Base Nation and on this episode, the great singer songwriter Mary Gauthier.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Music Saved Me.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hey there, I'm Len Hoffman, host of the Music Saved
Me podcast, and from time to time we like to
recommend and share other podcasts we love with you. We
really love the great work of all the wonderful people
at Home Based Nation in Boston and all the great
work they do to support our heroes, the veterans, and
their families, and we invite you to check out this
(00:22):
episode of Home Based Nation featuring a past guest that
we had on this podcast, the great singer songwriter Force
of Nature Mary Gasha. I hope you like it as
much as we do, and we really love the great
work of all the folks at Home Base in Boston
and all the great work they do to support the heroes,
the veterans, and their families. And we invite you to
(00:43):
check out this episode of Home Based Nation with a
past guest on this podcast, the great singer songwriter Force
of Nature Mary Gasha.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Levels and rule should be to Genevacodon, mo.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Fi Jeans, Raffles Rules.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
The song you're listening to is called Rifles and Rosary
Beats on the album with the same title that was
Grammy nominated for Best Folk Album in twenty eighteen. It
was written by two people, Mary Goche and Iraq veteran
Joe Costello. Mary was introduced to co writing with veterans
through the organization's Songwriting with Soldiers. She says this type
(01:44):
of work is all about agency, creating a place for
the service member to transition from being the story to
becoming the storyteller. And she writes in her recent book
Saved by a Song, this is what songs do best.
They show our insides on the outside. On Home Based
Nation Today, a conversation with songwriter, author, and military family
(02:08):
member Mary Gochet, I'm your host, Ron Hershberg, Thanks for
tuning in. A New Orleans native, Mary had a revelation
in July nineteen ninety while listening on her car radio
to the song Strange Fire by the Indigo Girls. The
song ended, she clenched the steering wheel and cried, and
(02:30):
she tells me I was in pain, a pain of
living in unlived life. She may have been showing success
on paper at the time, a head chef and owner
of the thriving restaurant Dixie Kitchen in Boston, but her
life was spiraling downward with addiction alcohol, failed relationships mixed
with sadness.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Yeah, I remember banging my hands against the steering wheel
and crying.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I was miserable.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
I was successful, but I didn't I wasn't sober and
I wasn't happy.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
A few months later, she was pulled over for drunk
driving and things started to change for the better, and
she has remained sober since for thirty two years. Through songs,
she discovered that she could express things that she was
not able to express in other ways. She gained confidence
in writing and performing.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah. I look at it as alchemy. It's magic. You
take some of.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
The darkest days of your life and write about it
in a song, and you make something beautiful out of it.
I mean, that's alchemy. And here's the catch. You're not
going to outrun it. You can't outrun it. It's with you,
it's in you, it's in your body, it's in your brain,
it's in your soul, it's in your emotional makeup.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You're not going to outrun it.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
And so for me, the answer was to stop running
and start slowly walking towards it and trying to alchemize
it with music and song. I didn't know that's what
I was doing. Of course, this is all in retrospect, she.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Wrote about early childhood trauma in both the pain and
blessings of being adopted at eleven months of age. She
wrote about family alcoholism and her three wars growing up Vietnam,
her parents' war with each other, and the war between
she and her father. Mary's dad served in the Korean
War and her cousin was killed in Vietnam at the
(04:19):
age of twenty three. So the military family service runs
deep and Mary and these days, she continues to serve
others through her songs. For veterans, they can heal personal
wounds and offer something simple but essential being seen.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
When I start to discuss what I've been able to
do with the veterans, what we've been able to do
with the veterans, the way I look at it is
we're giving agency. You go from being the story to
being the story teller. The storyteller hasency. The storyteller is
able to make choices and to decide how the story ends.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
When Mary talks about her sessions with songwriting with soldiers,
you can almost hear the phrase in the room, me too, brother,
me too. When she describes service members sharing each other's songs.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
They're all scared they're scared of being rejected, but the
opposite happens. They are embraced and empathy occurs. Everyone in
the room empathizes, and in that moment they're no longer alone.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Along with songwriter Beth Nielson Chapman, she wrote with a
group of spouses of EOD or explosive Ordinance disposal officers,
called the War After the War about the challenge of
family reintegration. It's opening line, who's going to care for
the ones who care for the ones who went to war?
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Being married to bomb expert whose job every day is
to dismantle bombs built to kill them, that's just a
crazy marriage.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
To me.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
That's the most intensity I've ever heard. It sounds like
a pressure cooker every single day. And they're young people
and they have kids, and their husbands come home different.
They come home home eventually, and they come home different.
And so that led to this notion that there's a
war after the war and we don't really talk about it.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
This song, incidentally, was named Song of the Year in
twenty eighteen on NPR by the New Yorkers Malcolm Gladwell.
And just the other day Mary released her brand new
and eleventh album dark enough to see the stars, and
we are honored to share a little preview with you,
so stick around for that. Mary joined us from her
Nashville home and on our wall hung two flags, one
(06:32):
for Ukraine and the other a large rainbow American flag,
highlighted by sparkling lights creating a glow. In an interview
in twenty nineteen with a Love to All project, Mary said,
I am the first openly queer person to play the
Grand Old Opry. I work in a musical genre where
most often I am the only gay person. I don't
(06:53):
let that stop me. I am so much more than
just queer in my work. I focus on what connects
people and it works out well. It's Pride Month, and
this word pride has powerful meaning when having the privilege
of sitting with Mary Goschet. Mary shares with us the
pride of being a supporter of our veterans and military families,
(07:13):
and the pride of being a savior of so many
with our songs. Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Bombed out school and homes, kids in the street.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Long, Mary goshe Hello, good to see you, Great to
see you. I am so happy to have you on
the zoom as they say together. Gosh, we met a
few years ago at City Winery in the back room,
the green room, and we met with Mary Judd, and
(07:51):
there is a veteran you that you had co written
with or was on the songwriting with Soldiers team, and
that was a great moment. I'll get to it in
a little bit, but to sort of see where you
were in your career at that moment, and then learning
more about you and now listening to your book this
past couple of weeks, Wow, the journey was It just
(08:15):
started for me when I got to know you like
three years ago, four years ago, but knowing what you've
accomplished before that time, to me is just it's great.
It's great to talk with you now.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
It's been a it's been a journey, you know, it's
been a journey. I really do believe that music and
song has been integral in my in my recovery and
in my transformation from a human disaster area and a functional.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Being into a functional being. Not only quite functional, but
you know someone who not only wrote this great book
Saved by a Song, and then went into the studio
and read it and spoken word. So one of the
things you started off in the book. I think it
was near the beginning you said you'd like to go
(09:07):
for walks, and that's when you kind of breathe think
about ideas.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Yeah, yeah, I did that for a decade and it's
actually pivoted now. I swim, okay, I swim a mile
a day, but it's the same process.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I'm in another zone.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Ideas come or I sort out stuff without consciously trying
to while I'm just counting my strokes.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
In that sort of state of flow. You know. I
mentioned that, Mary, because I've been going on walks and
I've been actually doing some running, trying to get back
in shape, and I was I walked and ran to
your book over seven hours in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Oh wow, So we're we're acquainted now.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Yeah, so you've been hanging out. You didn't know it, Mary,
but you've been hanging out with me for a while,
and we've been like, you know, going down the block,
We've gone around the track. I've had some moments where
I've stopped in my tracks and need to pull over. Hmm.
And I know that's kind of what you One of
the one of the big parts of your journey was,
(10:18):
uh was pulling over, that pulling over when you heard
that Indigo Girls song Strange Fire.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Yeah, there was some message in the bottle for me,
but I didn't know what it was. I didn't know
what it was for quite a while, and it took
it took quite a while to make sense of that feeling.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
It was more than just a song. It was There
was so much in.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
That sound, and I had no idea what it was
trying to tell me, but it was.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
And you look back on that, and I think you
told Amy Ray, who interviewed you, you had the pain
of an unlived life. Can you that's right? Can we
dive into that?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
We can?
Speaker 5 (10:58):
It's hard to you know, Oh, we are really complex
beings and there's so much about that that's hard to
express in language.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
But I think that drugs and alcohol blocked me from.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
What I would have done otherwise. Of course I didn't
know that's what was going on. So I ended up
doing what I could, and I did, you know, pretty well.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I found investors.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
I was able to be part owner of a couple
of restaurants in Boston.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
The first one was a.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Little place on the bottom of Beacon Hill called Lunch Break,
across from Mesh General and we did that successfully for years,
and then opened up Dixie, the Dixie Kitchen, which we
did for over a decade, the Louisiana style food in Boston.
And I had a little clamshack on the beach in
Dorchester by the Savon Hill Yacht Club Salvon Hill, and
(11:58):
I was able to do that kind of work.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
But what my soul was interested in was music and song.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
And I hadn't even tried because I didn't think I could.
And when I heard the sound of the Indigo Girls voices,
that just opened a like a I called it a
trap door and I just fell through it and it
(12:30):
was like, oh my god, what is this feeling? It
feels horrible. I love the song, I loved the sound,
but the feeling felt horrible.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
That's when you pulled over.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Yeah, I remember banging my hands against the steering wheel
and crying.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
I was miserable.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
I was successful, but I didn't I wasn't sober, and
I wasn't happy, and I was going down the wrong
road fast like metaphorically.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
In addictions.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
And you know, not too long after that, I got
arrested for drunk driving. And that was the best thing
that ever happened to me because I got sober. That
was July nineteen ninety.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
And you're I think you're thirty two years Can I
do the math?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Thirty two years clean and sober?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, congratulations, my friend.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Yeah. And so my early recovery was about trying to
make sense of that feeling about wondering and asking what
am I supposed to be doing?
Speaker 1 (13:31):
What would I do if I could do anything?
Speaker 5 (13:34):
And the answer slowly started to become you'd be a songwriter.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
It took getting pulled over by a cop and arrested
for drunk driving. But then again, it sounds like when
you were sober was really when the magic happened.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
Right right after I got sober, I started to develop
emotionally and spiritually. And you know, anybody addicted to drugs
and alcohol is not developing in any way completely stock
as a human being in many ways developmentally, I was
(14:11):
fourteen when I got sober at twenty seven.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
You were fourteen when you got sober at twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Emotionally, spiritually, yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
So, and when you look at that time, was it
the opportunity to get into music and explore You talk
a lot about your book, how you know getting on
that stage, whether it's club Passiene or another writers round
where it's terrifying. But was it the anticipation of the
(14:43):
music that drove you or was were you actually feeling
that you could write songs and perform and thus that
gave you more drive? It was a chicken of the egg.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
I had no idea what I was doing. I just
knew that it was compelled to me to do it
and to get better at it. And I was, like
everyone in the very beginning, I wasn't good at it,
so I had to learn how to do it. I
remember for quite some time, maybe years, on stage, just praying,
please help me to be as good at this as
(15:15):
I am at making gumbo and jambalaya.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
You know, It's just.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
That's all I'm asking Lord, Just just get me there.
As you know, as I learned to be in the kitchen,
I knew I could learn to be on stage, but
I had to. I had to go through it in
real time in front of people, and that's humbling. And
I don't know why I was willing.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
To do that.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Awful lot of people are not. I think it's because
I was sober and I knew that whatever happened after
I got sober. It was all just a gift, because really,
if there were justice and fairness, I should have been dead.
So this was all kind of bonus. I'm still I'm
(15:58):
living in this bonus time. I got these bonus rounds,
and so that kind of rounds freed me to do
crazy things like get on stage when I knew that
I was not good at it.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
So you went into this new culture, build yourself up,
got some fans around you, got people to to really
raise an eyebrow that you had something to say, but
that you were kind of ballsy enough to do it. Frankly, right, absolutely,
And the book is called Saved by a Song, So
you know, you don't have to read the book to
(16:32):
make the assumption that you were saved by music and
that transition and that moment that you just talked about.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I honestly believe that to be true.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
And how how has it saved others? I think is
a big question.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
I want to get into that a little, Mary, because
you know, I was just when I said I was
stopping my track, I was thinking about you and Saint
Vincent's thinking about that read. You know, when you went
to search for where you were, where your birth, where
your a biological mom had dropped you off at Saint Vincent's.
(17:11):
And then the time that you know, you were struck
by when HIV took its toll, and and you really
were kind of speaking for that community that was really
really not only ostracized, but lost and like not having
a lot. There wasn't people wrapping their arms around them.
(17:34):
There weren't people wrapping around their arms around them. And
then talking about alcoholism itself in an addiction, not to
mention what of course, through home base, we'll talk about
the veteran experience. So I'm throwing a lot of these in.
You know, these these are chapters in your book, but
their chapters.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
In your life.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
In your life, yeah, and they're part of you. So
I'm kind of wondering when you sort of sit back
and you think about this, what's the thread here, what's
the commonality between all of this?
Speaker 5 (18:07):
I think it doesn't make sense while you're in it,
and then you start to make sense of it. It's
in retrospect. Here's what I think. I think I grabbed
on to music and songs because my soul somehow intrinsically
new that I had to express things that I couldn't
express any other way, and those things had a lot
(18:31):
to do with my addiction? What caused me to be
an attic at age thirteen? How does that happen? How
what happens? How does a person end up that way?
And the answer is is because they're in pain and
they're playing doctor. They're medicating their own pain. Okay, why
was I in pain? And I had to start tracing
(18:51):
it back, and for me, all roads led to Saint Vincent's.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
The day I was born, my mother.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Gave me up for adoption and I spent a year
at Saint Vincent's before I was adopted, and in that time,
my first year on earth, I didn't have parents and
I was not held enough. I was probably not fed enough,
and I ended up catatonic. And I didn't know any
(19:22):
of this until my almost late forties. Nobody told me
that I was catatonic when I was adopted.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
They didn't just sick well, sorry, go ahead, marriage.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
I didn't think it was something I should be told,
so I had to trace all this myself, and using
music and song as my springboard, like I'm going to
write songs about it, gave me the courage to do it.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Your mom said that it took a couple of weeks,
but she reversed that you say catatonia, So you weren't
looking left right, You weren't interacting with people at eleven
months old, which is obviously a tough thing, to tough
pill to swallow to someone to tell you that that
was you. But look what your mom, look at the
(20:05):
gift that she gave you.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
Absolutely that is probably, you know, uh, the story for
so many adoptive and children that that that you need
to attach to someone and without attachment you shrivel and
and and die as you would to live as a baby.
(20:28):
Uh And uh uh you know, the the gift of
adoption uh is one that uh uh uh that that
that I don't take lightly and I'm always going to
be grateful for that. That said, Yeah, trauma of that
first year uh and the attachment disorder it left me
(20:50):
with uh were something I had to contend with and
those were mine uh and I had to as an
adult start making sense of it, right. And this is
where music and song came in so handy, right, because
that's where I was driven to write about that kind
of real stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
And as I worked my way through.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
It, I started getting better and the whole in my.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Soul started closing.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
And at some point I was asked to work with
Darden and songwriting with Soldiers, and I had already had
a deep understanding of how transformative music and song could
be around trauma right from my personal story.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Right the theme really, so trauma is really kind of
a universal problem for kids, for adults, for civilians, for veterans,
and unleashing that opening that up is painful, but yet
what joy you can bring to somebody that goes through
(21:56):
that process. And actually, because you talk a lot about
how it's a tan, it's a way to talk about
things that you can't express.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Any other way. Yeah. Yeah, I look at it as alchemy.
It's magic.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
You take some of the darkest days of your life
and write about it in a song and you make
something beautiful out of it. I mean, that's alchemy. And
here's the catch. You're not going to outrun it. You
can't outrun it.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
It's with you.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
It's in you, it's in your body, it's in your brain,
it's in your soul, it's in your emotional makeup.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
You're not going to outrun it.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
And so for me, the answer was to stop running
and start slowly walking towards it and trying to alchemize
it with music and song. I didn't know that's what
I was doing. Of course, this is all in retrospect.
But when I start to discuss what I've been able
to do with the veterans, what we've been able to
do with the veterans, the way I look at it
is we're giving agency. You go from being the story
(22:57):
to being the story teller. The story tell teller has agency.
The storyteller is able to make choices and to decide
how the story ends.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Yeah, I mean you mentioned Darden Smith and Mary Judges
who started songwriting the Soldiers in twenty twelve. So now
we're looking at this is ten years ago, and that's
I met you know, I met Darden probably in twenty sixteen,
and like you and many, I was blown away by
the concept. It sounded like you had the resume in
a sense, because you've been there, done that, You've you've
(23:28):
been able to translate trauma. Now I'm going to read
your Rifles and rosary Beads song. If I may, Mirrors
frightened me. I don't recognize what I see A stranger
with blood on his hands. Brother, I'm not that man.
Rifles and rosary beats, you hold tight, you hold on tight,
(23:51):
you hold on to what you need. Vic it in
morphine dreams, rifles and rosary beats. There's a lot in that.
Mm hmmm, in that one. Stanza so much. You wrote
that with Joe Costello veteran, right, you remember sitting down?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I do. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Joe was withdrawn, gaunt. He wasn't interacting with the group
very much. Uh, he looked down a lot. He clearly
was in pain. And uh, you know he had written
a poem called Rifles and Rosary Beads and we talked
about it, and uh, the imagery was so powerful, the visual, Uh,
(24:35):
you know, the idea of what are you holding on to?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Over there in Fallujah?
Speaker 5 (24:39):
You know, some guys are holding their rifles, some guys
are holding rosary beads. And so I asked him what
were you holding on too? And he got tears in
his eyes and he said vicotin. I said, well, I
understand that you're we're on the same page there.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I understand using medication illegally.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
Do to self medicate pain and fear and grief and
sorrow and separation.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And loneliness. We understood each other.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Did that change the dynamic?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
It did.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
We built trust right then and there right and then
he told me he didn't look in the mirror anymore,
and that's how that ended up in the song.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Now talking about the mirror, it reminds me of the mask.
It reminds me of. So we do some therapy at
home Base where it's mass therapy. That's stuff they do
at well to read, where you paint the inside and
you paint the outside, and the veteran can express how
they view themselves inside and how others view them outside.
And it really made me think of that when you
(25:51):
said the following. You know, you said, songs are what
this is what songs do best. They show our insides
on the out.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Humans are all in the same boat. This new vulnerability
is being witnessed and what it does it connects that
sense of self and also to each other, so that
outside and inside. I was, you know, listening to you
talk about that. I'm hearing the songs on the album.
(26:23):
I'm thinking about the lyrics, but to hear you describe
what they do, I think pulls it all together and
tell me about how it was when they when you
perform that song for his comrades, for his family.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Right, that's part of the Songwrity with Soldier's program is
we co write with the veteran and then we play
the song in front of the group in the early evening.
And when I started to play the song I'd written
with Joe, he was absolutely terrified because he was fixing
to be seen in a way he hadn't been seen before.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
He was shaken. About halfway in there, he was crying.
It was all I could do not to cry. We
almost always cry. It's part of it.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
You know. I'm not a therapist. I can cry if
I want to, and I cry because it's so moving
and because I know that what's about to happen is
he's going to be embraced. The deepest fear is that
he's going to be rejected. Of course, that's why he's scared.
They're all scared. They're scared of being rejected. But the
opposite happens. They they are embraced and empathy occurs. Everyone
(27:32):
in the room empathizes and in that moment they're no
longer alone. Someone sees them on the inside and says
the magic words me too, brother, me too. You know
he got you know, people putting their arms around him,
patting him on the back, saying thank you, thank you,
thank you. I know, I know that feeling. I know
(27:53):
I know what you're talking about. I feel that way.
It takes someone from the edge and brings them back
into the middle.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
It's huge mirrors fries me don't recognos what else.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
See the stranger with blood.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
On his hands. Brother, I'm no bad man.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Raffles and rows beans you hold on to.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
June vacating moll Fien dreams, raffles and rolls, beans, raffles
and rolls, beans, you hold on to.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
You need.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
You continue to do that. Mm hmmm, yeah, you continue
to do the retreats. You mentioned also that that great
song with Beth Nielson Chapman where you sat around with
was it mostly wives?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
We sat around with wives or spouses?
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Yeah, yes, by spouses EOD wives talking about what it's
like to be married to a bomb expert and uh.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Oh, I didn't know that they were all EO D.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
It's so kind of a specific world within a world.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
The high risk, it's a very high risk job in
all branches of the military. Explosive ordinance disposal and being
married to bomb expert whose job every day is to
dismantle bombs built to kill them.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
That's just a crazy marriage. To me.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
That's just that's the most intensity I've ever heard. It
sounds like it sounds like a pressure cooker every single day.
And they're young people and they have kids and oh
my goodness, and their husbands come home different. They come
home eventually, and they come home different. And so that
(30:12):
led to this notion that there's a war after the war,
and we don't really talk about it, and so that's
the title of the song. I think you're referencing the war.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
The war.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
The war after the war is something that everyone in
that room could identify with, right because the struggles of
transition back and how you reintegrate back to your life
and back to your kids and your wife or your
husband or your spouse and your work. How is that
taking back to some of your other travels. I mean,
you've traveled and so many countries, married and played in
(30:47):
every state, and you connect with people, they connect with you,
they come to your shows. They also talk with you,
and you talk with them and you listen, tell me
about some of the stuff with Rifles and Rosary specifically
that veteran military spouse community. What comes to mind when
you think about playing those live in talking with the
(31:09):
military families during those gigs.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
Yeah, I mean I was in Texas last week. We
played outside of Wimberley, a little festival at a Texas
roadhouse on air condition ninety eight degrees, full on Texas
kind of thing, and after we played, woman came up
to the table in tears and wanted to hug me.
She said, the war, after the war, that's me. I
(31:33):
get those almost every single night when I play the
songs from Rifles and Rosary Bees. There's people in the
audience who have lived it, and what happens I think
is cathartic. On the surface, if you're standing there watching it,
it looks like there's sorrow, like it looks sad, But
I think it's catharsis.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I think it helps people to not feel alone, to help.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
People to know that they're going through some then a
lot of other people are going through and they're not
singled out. It's not unique to them, and they're not alone.
They may feel alone and they may not even have
anybody to talk to, but they're not alone. And all
they got to do is start talking about this stuff
and they'll find their community of other people. It's a
(32:21):
secrecy in silence that kills us. So I think of
it as a catharsis and aha, and like, well, maybe
I can talk about this.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I think there's hope in it.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
But if you were to look at it and not
know all that, it looks like an interaction of sadness,
but it's not.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It's transformative.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
That transformation can save lives. It sounds kind of you know,
it sounds out there, of course, to say that a
song saves a life. Okay here, I'm actually sitting in
the intensive care unit right now. Is a song going
to save a life today? No, but it's going to
save and restore and bring hope and change lives and
(33:03):
save lives over time. What you've been able to do
with this collection, with your albums and with your fans
is really I was getting at before, not only the
veteran community, right, this all began years ago. So that's
a powerful thing. It is to save other lives.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
It is, and I think it's connected to purpose.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
And I honestly have a theory that the ancients knew this.
I think with the advent of the music business and
the monetization of music as a product, we've collectively forgotten
what music is for. I think the gods gave us
music so we don't have to be alone. That's what
harmony is is in harmony together. And I think that
(33:51):
the ancient people's and not that long ago, knew that
we sing together to bring people home. And what are
so struggling with the inability to come all the way home?
They get here physically, but emotionally and spiritually, they can't
find their way home. And this is something that music
can expedite. And I've seen it in real time. And
(34:12):
I don't know, you know, listeners may not know this,
but we've lost more of our military to suicide than
we did in the twenty odd years that they were
fighting in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And if we have
something that can help them come home and find peace,
I think we should all be engaging in that and
(34:34):
using that as a tool to help them come home.
They served to us, We got to serve them. That's
how I see it.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
You know.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
I was in Austin, like I said, and outside of Wimberley,
and we stayed in Austin last week and there's a
statue of a homeless veteran on the walk by the river,
and soldiers have put their dog tags on it. So
much homelessness and suffering and suicide and pain in the community.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
That was of service.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Tell me, Mary, there's a lot of service going on.
In your years of songwriting and connecting with people indirectly
and directly, you have been saving people along the way
and really giving them an opportunity to change or to heal,
not just with this innovative, collaborative approach where you write
(35:22):
with people, but obviously your story that resonates.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
That's why I talk about it, don't I talk about
adoption as trauma. I talk about recovery from alcohol and
drug addiction and the possibilities that opens for people. After
you get sobered, you can live the life that you
were put here to live. You don't have to suffer
from an unlived life your whole life.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Yeah, back to that strange fire moment. Yeah, you're from
a military family. Yeah, and I don't think a lot
of people know that.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Yeah, my dad served in Korea and in the last
days of his life, uh, when when his brain was
not functioning, properly at all anymore. He kept thinking he
was testifying in some kind of military tribunal. He never
talked about being in Korea. He was in intelligence. Uh,
(36:15):
And he just kept in his in his you know,
assisted living, saying I need a I need a yellow
pad and a paper and give it to him. And
he'd give sir, no, sir, I cannot speak to that
sir like he was.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
He was a soldier. Again. It brought peers to my eyes.
He never talked about it.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
The only thing I knew about my father's military service
was that he wouldn't allow guns in our house.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Your mom as a spouse, when you thought when you
wrote that song with Beth, in a sense, your your
mom was one of those women.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
And I didn't know it. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
So much of this is mysterious, like you're doing something
that has connections that are real and you don't see
him until after.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
It's so mysterious.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Your dad. I mean, there's a I encourage please people
read this amazing book. You talk about alcoholism and you
talk about your dad, and this is a whole conversation
in and of itself. But to what extent do you
if you look back? I mean, is there a connection
there to his service, and I think so some of
his own medication, I think so.
Speaker 5 (37:25):
I think he experienced some kind of trauma. Yeah, and
it damaged him.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
I do I believe that.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
Yeah, because Mary, I mean you mentioned something. I think
this was earlier in the book. You talk about the
Vietnam War and you talk about your cousin Philip.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, Philip. Philip died young in Vietnam.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
He was twenty three Army KIA. You talk about the
Vietnam War and I remember, you know, I'm a little
younger than you, but I remember Walter Cronkite. He spanned
a couple, you know, several decades, and I can hear
that as well. And then you talk about your parents war,
and then you talk about your own war with your dad. Yeah,
(38:04):
which is heavy stuff obviously, but that time in your life,
even though it was so hard and you left home early,
there was something really powerful that gave you the tools
later in life. I always think back to that. I
always wonder, you know, there's a power, there's something that
was in there that gave you the ability. It wasn't
(38:27):
just being pulled over by that cop.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
You know. I wish I could bottle it.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
I wish I could name it, even, like, why do
some people get arrested for drunk driving and immediately when
they get out of jail start drinking again. Why do
some people get sober and some people just can't?
Speaker 1 (38:46):
You know? Why did some people have this.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Weird tenacity to go through being on stage and knowing
you suck, and knowing there's no way to get better
at it.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
You can't get better in your living room.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
You got to do it in front of people and
work through the stage fright, Why would I stick with
it and others be unable? I don't know what that is.
I think it's constitutional. I think I maybe have some
just innate gifts that allowed me to keep going and
(39:21):
to get sober.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
But I also think it's grace.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
I think there's some unmerited gift in that that you
don't deserve. That there's the notion of grace, amazing grace
saved a wretch like me.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I mean I relate to that. I was a wretch.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
So it's ineffable in so many ways, And there's no
way to talk about it without going into spiritual language,
which becomes more and more ethereal and starts to sound
like some sort of a religious pitch, and it's really not.
It's quite practical, and there's no theology behind it.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
There's just there's mystery.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
I know.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Yeah. I mean you mentioned to Amy Ray, who was, gosh,
one of my musical heroes, me too. You said being
terrified as part of the agreement, Amy, you know, and
I just that hit me. I was actually what was
I I was doing the dishes the other day. You
remember what you're doing sometimes when something somebody says something
(40:24):
so prolific. Anyway, and then you went on to say
that if going forward is the goal, fear is going
to be the emotion. So I think that connects to
what you're saying, Mary, is that there's not without trepidation.
There's fear here, and there's there's there's risks, and it's
not you know. I have to say, there's a lot
that connects to service, our service members. You're serving in
(40:46):
a different way and hats off. You know, behind you
is that beautiful flag. I'm seeing two things right now.
I'm seeing a proud military family member and a proud
person that works with veterans. And I'm seeing pride because
I know Pride Month is coming up. Yeah, absolutely happy
(41:08):
Early Pride.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Thank you. Yeah, that's another thing I need to talk about.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
And not not not be in the shadows about it.
You know, I'm a i'm a i'm a i'm i'm
a gay woman and i'm i'm i'm an advocate for
lgbt Q people and all that I think we're asking
for as respect and dignity. Uh and uh, you know,
(41:32):
permission to live our lives without being assaulted or ridiculous
laws being passed against our personhood.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
And you see a Ukrainian flag too.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I'm I'm definitely uh concerned what's going on over there.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
I'm in awe.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
Of the courage of those people, uh, and the absolute
tenacity and commitment to their democracy. I think Americans can
learn a lot if we watch closely. What they're doing
to save their democracy is astonishing and I fully support
their effort.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (42:14):
So, yeah, flags are powerful symbols, and yeah, you can
you can definitely make a statement with a flag.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
You know, my daughter actually is fourteen and she I
didn't know that the Pride flag was. I think it
was in the seventies that it started to be more
of a part of our culture. But things have really
changed since that time is over fifty years, Oh my god,
so much. So. You're right, there's been some really amazing
advancements in the openness and the understanding is probably light
(42:46):
years than it was when you started coming of age.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Oh my god.
Speaker 6 (42:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
But at the same time, it's not going away, and
we know that there's a lot of lack of understanding.
How does that connect to your writing? If anything?
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Interesting to me is that when you go into music
and you start to take it seriously, and then you
take the stage and you start building a career, you
don't choose your fans, they choose you. And I figured,
you know, I probably would have a fan base that
was more or less predominantly gay lesbian, and that's just
not true.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
It's not my base at all.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
I connect deeply with heterosexual men who are a lot
like me. My fan base looks more like a Guy
Clark fan base or townsman Zant fan base, or you know,
Christ Christofferson or.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
The John Prime.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
It's those guys.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah, it's those guys.
Speaker 5 (43:41):
Those guys are I'm kindred with them, and my musical
development was deeply influenced by them and the people who
come to see me are people who would go to
those shows. So it really, weirdly doesn't have a lot
(44:01):
to do with music for me.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
There shouldn't be an expectation that it.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Does, you know, I'm the one who had it.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
Actually, I thought that's what it would be, but it's not.
And and I'm just grateful that that I have people
that come. Everybody's welcome, you know, if you can relate
to what I'm doing. I'm so happy to have you there.
Uh And and it's really a uh, a diverse group
(44:31):
of people that that come in. Uh And I don't
you know, I don't hide who I am. But I
also that's that's not the nature of my songs.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
I don't. I don't sing about being gay. I don't.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
I don't know how to write songs about that. I
write songs about being a human.
Speaker 6 (44:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
So so beautifully said, and so and so real. I mean,
you know what's interesting is that in a sense, you
become an allies or you not. You become a conduit
for all types to really you know, if there was
ever a connection. It's really, like you said, those guys
that may normally you know, they may listen to Guy
(45:12):
Clark and others and John Priyan. But now they're you know,
part of the whole family, and it's a great thing.
You know, it's interesting, Like I don't have a question here,
but I when I was in college, it was nineteen
eighty nine and I was in Burlington, Vermont. I remember
seeing the Indigo girls. We went. We heard about there's
such a buzz around that time, obviously, right, and here
(45:32):
I am, you know, straight dude, you know, eighteen years old,
mostly women. I think there was probably like eighty percent
women in the audience. I'm a songwriter as well. I'm
a musician. That was transformative for me. I mean, I
I'm still credible time, it was incredible. Time I play
it for my kids. You know, it's I just the
other day I was like, you know the song secure
(45:53):
Yourself to Heaven, Secure Yourself. I think I was actually
when I was on the one of those walks when
I was listening to your book. It probably triggered because
you know, the Indego girls you talked about. So I
put it on Spotify and I just sat there.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
I'm like, wow, so great.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
And their harmonies and just so what they you know,
what they did as you said. I think to Amy
in your interview something about like blasting open the door
for other people.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
They did, They kicked. There was a cultural moment.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
Their music came ahead of the changes that that we
were about to go through.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Uh, they blasted down the door.
Speaker 5 (46:32):
And Amy shocked me when she said, but we hated
ourselves and we were in the closet.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Like it didn't matter, did it.
Speaker 5 (46:40):
It happened anyway because the music, again is always the
music and song is always ahead of the songwriter. There's
a wisdom in the art form that transcends the individuals.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
And so when you know when when when.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
Like when you reference that I've saved lives with this practice,
I would push back a little and say, well, I
was a midwife in the process of salvation.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
But music and song saved the lives.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
Yeah, a midwife, you were the mid songwriter?
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yes, like that because it's not unique to me.
Speaker 5 (47:21):
Anybody who understands the art firm can do it, can
bear witness and help expedite that kind of experience that
pulls somebody from the edge back in.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Well, what did you say, don't leave music and songwriting
up to the professionals, right?
Speaker 5 (47:37):
I love that well, and what I'm saying there is
that if all we focus on is monetization and bottom
line and turn it into McDonald's where everybody's having McNuggets,
the experience that I describe in the book doesn't happen
because it's a product to be sold, more than more
(47:59):
than the mystery, to be approached with respect.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
And more than the process. M Yeah, And that gets
to the collaborative model, because you know, with with Darden
Smith and others, we've you know, work with you did
this amazing job with us with the frontline songs and
and and all the stuff you do with with a
with veterans. It's you can write one on one with
somebody which is beautiful, like you did with Joe, right,
(48:25):
Joe Costello and others. And there's a to me, there's
a certain there's a bond there that you can create
and you can that. Well, let me ask you what's
the difference Mary, when you are one to one with anybody,
whether they're you know, going through any type of trauma
and you versus that group and that cohesion.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
You know, the group is there to witness what happened
one on one in the workshops. So one on one
you create trust, and you you bear witness in non judgment,
and you take their story and turn it into their song,
and the group then is the witness, and the writing
of the song is only fifty percent of the deal
(49:10):
that causes transformation. Then you have to bring it to
a group of witnesses who then bear witness and see
the inside of that person that you've written with. And
the witnesses then experience empathy and embrace that person, and
they are brought to a new place of self acceptance,
an understanding of their own humanity, that that that that
(49:35):
they're not different than everyone else.
Speaker 4 (49:38):
I'm like you, brother, Yeah, me too, man you sister,
me too?
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Man.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Yeah. Mary, You've been so gracious. You're on the road,
You're doing a lot of things. What's next for you?
What's what's hot on Mary's mind? Now?
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Yeah, we're hitting the road.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
I got a new record coming out June third, and
so I've got tour dates and tour dates and tour dates,
and it's an exciting time.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Here we go again. Record number eleven is going eleven
to the world.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
Yes, I will not make a spinal tap reference, I promise,
but eleven beautiful. So we heard some of the music.
It's great. What do you excite? Is there a theme
to any of this album or is it sort of
purely old school a bunch of great songs.
Speaker 5 (50:20):
Well, what we've been through in the pandemic has made
its appearance there for sure.
Speaker 6 (50:25):
Yea.
Speaker 5 (50:26):
And love, the importance of love and the intensity of
what we've all been through. You know, we we've all
lost a lot of people. The numbers are staggering, and
so there's grief and there's loss, and there's love, and
so that's the nature of it.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
And how can how can how can we all really
identify as an understatement and how can we heal with
some of that? As you're you know, you're the spiritual leader, Mary,
You're you're sort of helping us get through through that
every day. So we can't wait to hear the old
the whole album. Thank you, Mary, Thank you so much
for your time and for all you do and for
(51:07):
your you know you're serving those who served and many others.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
So thank you, Thank you, Ron, thank you, Lucy. Appreciate
y'all doing this. Take care of y'all. It's dog enough
to see, so dog enough to see did darging enough
to see the light in anocean black.
Speaker 4 (51:36):
Indeed, in the middle of.
Speaker 6 (51:41):
The night, it's a hold on two, you know, let
those lights turn up block.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
I've drifted out, so.
Speaker 5 (52:03):
It's talking love to see the sun.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
I've been carried out, so fall it's talking love to
see this.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Thank you to our guest, Mary Gachet for your talents,
your support and service over the years for so many
Mary's books. Saved by a song is one you should
really read or listen to on Audible. I listened to
Mary's book and was entrance with not only the storyteller
coming from her own voice, but the fact that each
chapter is punctuated by a unique song. These songs are
(52:43):
really chapters of her life with a common thread of
resilience and recovery. And of course check out the new
album dark Enough to See the Stars, which is available
right now. Speaking of songwriting with Soldiers, if you've not
listened already, we have an episode called Warrior Healer that
was released February seventeenth, twenty twenty, that highlights a song
co written by one of our veteran alumni at Homebase
(53:05):
Air Force veteran Blair Morin and James House. So lastly,
I have two podcasts to recommend with Mary Gosche. We
met in twenty eighteen on a podcast I was co
hosting called Above the Basement. If you're interested in a
show that covers the lives and stories of musicians, check
out the show, produced and hosted by my friend Chuck Clow,
which has over two hundred episodes in the vault. The
(53:27):
episode we refer to in today's conversation is number eighty
one in February twenty eighteen. Also be sure to check
out Mary's conversation on the November twenty twenty one episode
of Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Broken Record. Home
Based Nation is the official podcast for the Home Based
Program for veterans and military families. Follow Home Based on
(53:48):
social media at Home Based Program. Please listen and follow
us on Apple, iHeart, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode was produced, edited and engineered by Lucy Little.
I'm Ron Hirschberg. Thanks so much for listening. We will
see you next time.
Music Saved Me.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hey there, I'm Len Hoffman, host of the Music Saved
Me podcast, and from time to time we like to
recommend and share other podcasts we love with you. We
really love the great work of all the wonderful people
at Home Based Nation in Boston and all the great
work they do to support our heroes, the veterans, and
their families, and we invite you to check out this
(00:22):
episode of Home Based Nation featuring a past guest that
we had on this podcast, the great singer songwriter Force
of Nature Mary Gasha. I hope you like it as
much as we do, and we really love the great
work of all the folks at Home Base in Boston
and all the great work they do to support the heroes,
the veterans, and their families. And we invite you to
(00:43):
check out this episode of Home Based Nation with a
past guest on this podcast, the great singer songwriter Force
of Nature Mary Gasha.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Levels and rule should be to Genevacodon, mo.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Fi Jeans, Raffles Rules.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
The song you're listening to is called Rifles and Rosary
Beats on the album with the same title that was
Grammy nominated for Best Folk Album in twenty eighteen. It
was written by two people, Mary Goche and Iraq veteran
Joe Costello. Mary was introduced to co writing with veterans
through the organization's Songwriting with Soldiers. She says this type
(01:44):
of work is all about agency, creating a place for
the service member to transition from being the story to
becoming the storyteller. And she writes in her recent book
Saved by a Song, this is what songs do best.
They show our insides on the outside. On Home Based
Nation Today, a conversation with songwriter, author, and military family
(02:08):
member Mary Gochet, I'm your host, Ron Hershberg, Thanks for
tuning in. A New Orleans native, Mary had a revelation
in July nineteen ninety while listening on her car radio
to the song Strange Fire by the Indigo Girls. The
song ended, she clenched the steering wheel and cried, and
(02:30):
she tells me I was in pain, a pain of
living in unlived life. She may have been showing success
on paper at the time, a head chef and owner
of the thriving restaurant Dixie Kitchen in Boston, but her
life was spiraling downward with addiction alcohol, failed relationships mixed
with sadness.
Speaker 5 (02:51):
Yeah, I remember banging my hands against the steering wheel
and crying.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I was miserable.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
I was successful, but I didn't I wasn't sober and
I wasn't happy.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
A few months later, she was pulled over for drunk
driving and things started to change for the better, and
she has remained sober since for thirty two years. Through songs,
she discovered that she could express things that she was
not able to express in other ways. She gained confidence
in writing and performing.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah. I look at it as alchemy. It's magic. You
take some of.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
The darkest days of your life and write about it
in a song, and you make something beautiful out of it.
I mean, that's alchemy. And here's the catch. You're not
going to outrun it. You can't outrun it. It's with you,
it's in you, it's in your body, it's in your brain,
it's in your soul, it's in your emotional makeup.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You're not going to outrun it.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
And so for me, the answer was to stop running
and start slowly walking towards it and trying to alchemize
it with music and song. I didn't know that's what
I was doing. Of course, this is all in retrospect, she.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Wrote about early childhood trauma in both the pain and
blessings of being adopted at eleven months of age. She
wrote about family alcoholism and her three wars growing up Vietnam,
her parents' war with each other, and the war between
she and her father. Mary's dad served in the Korean
War and her cousin was killed in Vietnam at the
(04:19):
age of twenty three. So the military family service runs
deep and Mary and these days, she continues to serve
others through her songs. For veterans, they can heal personal
wounds and offer something simple but essential being seen.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
When I start to discuss what I've been able to
do with the veterans, what we've been able to do
with the veterans, the way I look at it is
we're giving agency. You go from being the story to
being the story teller. The storyteller hasency. The storyteller is
able to make choices and to decide how the story ends.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
When Mary talks about her sessions with songwriting with soldiers,
you can almost hear the phrase in the room, me too, brother,
me too. When she describes service members sharing each other's songs.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
They're all scared they're scared of being rejected, but the
opposite happens. They are embraced and empathy occurs. Everyone in
the room empathizes, and in that moment they're no longer alone.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Along with songwriter Beth Nielson Chapman, she wrote with a
group of spouses of EOD or explosive Ordinance disposal officers,
called the War After the War about the challenge of
family reintegration. It's opening line, who's going to care for
the ones who care for the ones who went to war?
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Being married to bomb expert whose job every day is
to dismantle bombs built to kill them, that's just a
crazy marriage.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
To me.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
That's the most intensity I've ever heard. It sounds like
a pressure cooker every single day. And they're young people
and they have kids, and their husbands come home different.
They come home home eventually, and they come home different.
And so that led to this notion that there's a
war after the war and we don't really talk about it.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
This song, incidentally, was named Song of the Year in
twenty eighteen on NPR by the New Yorkers Malcolm Gladwell.
And just the other day Mary released her brand new
and eleventh album dark enough to see the stars, and
we are honored to share a little preview with you,
so stick around for that. Mary joined us from her
Nashville home and on our wall hung two flags, one
(06:32):
for Ukraine and the other a large rainbow American flag,
highlighted by sparkling lights creating a glow. In an interview
in twenty nineteen with a Love to All project, Mary said,
I am the first openly queer person to play the
Grand Old Opry. I work in a musical genre where
most often I am the only gay person. I don't
(06:53):
let that stop me. I am so much more than
just queer in my work. I focus on what connects
people and it works out well. It's Pride Month, and
this word pride has powerful meaning when having the privilege
of sitting with Mary Goschet. Mary shares with us the
pride of being a supporter of our veterans and military families,
(07:13):
and the pride of being a savior of so many
with our songs. Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Bombed out school and homes, kids in the street.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Long, Mary goshe Hello, good to see you, Great to
see you. I am so happy to have you on
the zoom as they say together. Gosh, we met a
few years ago at City Winery in the back room,
the green room, and we met with Mary Judd, and
(07:51):
there is a veteran you that you had co written
with or was on the songwriting with Soldiers team, and
that was a great moment. I'll get to it in
a little bit, but to sort of see where you
were in your career at that moment, and then learning
more about you and now listening to your book this
past couple of weeks, Wow, the journey was It just
(08:15):
started for me when I got to know you like
three years ago, four years ago, but knowing what you've
accomplished before that time, to me is just it's great.
It's great to talk with you now.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
It's been a it's been a journey, you know, it's
been a journey. I really do believe that music and
song has been integral in my in my recovery and
in my transformation from a human disaster area and a functional.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Being into a functional being. Not only quite functional, but
you know someone who not only wrote this great book
Saved by a Song, and then went into the studio
and read it and spoken word. So one of the
things you started off in the book. I think it
was near the beginning you said you'd like to go
(09:07):
for walks, and that's when you kind of breathe think
about ideas.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Yeah, yeah, I did that for a decade and it's
actually pivoted now. I swim, okay, I swim a mile
a day, but it's the same process.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I'm in another zone.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Ideas come or I sort out stuff without consciously trying
to while I'm just counting my strokes.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
In that sort of state of flow. You know. I
mentioned that, Mary, because I've been going on walks and
I've been actually doing some running, trying to get back
in shape, and I was I walked and ran to
your book over seven hours in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Oh wow, So we're we're acquainted now.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Yeah, so you've been hanging out. You didn't know it, Mary,
but you've been hanging out with me for a while,
and we've been like, you know, going down the block,
We've gone around the track. I've had some moments where
I've stopped in my tracks and need to pull over. Hmm.
And I know that's kind of what you One of
the one of the big parts of your journey was,
(10:18):
uh was pulling over, that pulling over when you heard
that Indigo Girls song Strange Fire.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
Yeah, there was some message in the bottle for me,
but I didn't know what it was. I didn't know
what it was for quite a while, and it took
it took quite a while to make sense of that feeling.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
It was more than just a song. It was There
was so much in.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
That sound, and I had no idea what it was
trying to tell me, but it was.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
And you look back on that, and I think you
told Amy Ray, who interviewed you, you had the pain
of an unlived life. Can you that's right? Can we
dive into that?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
We can?
Speaker 5 (10:58):
It's hard to you know, Oh, we are really complex
beings and there's so much about that that's hard to
express in language.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
But I think that drugs and alcohol blocked me from.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
What I would have done otherwise. Of course I didn't
know that's what was going on. So I ended up
doing what I could, and I did, you know, pretty well.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I found investors.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
I was able to be part owner of a couple
of restaurants in Boston.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
The first one was a.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Little place on the bottom of Beacon Hill called Lunch Break,
across from Mesh General and we did that successfully for years,
and then opened up Dixie, the Dixie Kitchen, which we
did for over a decade, the Louisiana style food in Boston.
And I had a little clamshack on the beach in
Dorchester by the Savon Hill Yacht Club Salvon Hill, and
(11:58):
I was able to do that kind of work.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
But what my soul was interested in was music and song.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
And I hadn't even tried because I didn't think I could.
And when I heard the sound of the Indigo Girls voices,
that just opened a like a I called it a
trap door and I just fell through it and it
(12:30):
was like, oh my god, what is this feeling? It
feels horrible. I love the song, I loved the sound,
but the feeling felt horrible.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
That's when you pulled over.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Yeah, I remember banging my hands against the steering wheel
and crying.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
I was miserable.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
I was successful, but I didn't I wasn't sober, and
I wasn't happy, and I was going down the wrong
road fast like metaphorically.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
In addictions.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
And you know, not too long after that, I got
arrested for drunk driving. And that was the best thing
that ever happened to me because I got sober. That
was July nineteen ninety.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
And you're I think you're thirty two years Can I
do the math?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Thirty two years clean and sober?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, congratulations, my friend.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Yeah. And so my early recovery was about trying to
make sense of that feeling about wondering and asking what
am I supposed to be doing?
Speaker 1 (13:31):
What would I do if I could do anything?
Speaker 5 (13:34):
And the answer slowly started to become you'd be a songwriter.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
It took getting pulled over by a cop and arrested
for drunk driving. But then again, it sounds like when
you were sober was really when the magic happened.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
Right right after I got sober, I started to develop
emotionally and spiritually. And you know, anybody addicted to drugs
and alcohol is not developing in any way completely stock
as a human being in many ways developmentally, I was
(14:11):
fourteen when I got sober at twenty seven.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
You were fourteen when you got sober at twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Emotionally, spiritually, yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
So, and when you look at that time, was it
the opportunity to get into music and explore You talk
a lot about your book, how you know getting on
that stage, whether it's club Passiene or another writers round
where it's terrifying. But was it the anticipation of the
(14:43):
music that drove you or was were you actually feeling
that you could write songs and perform and thus that
gave you more drive? It was a chicken of the egg.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
I had no idea what I was doing. I just
knew that it was compelled to me to do it
and to get better at it. And I was, like
everyone in the very beginning, I wasn't good at it,
so I had to learn how to do it. I
remember for quite some time, maybe years, on stage, just praying,
please help me to be as good at this as
(15:15):
I am at making gumbo and jambalaya.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
You know, It's just.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
That's all I'm asking Lord, Just just get me there.
As you know, as I learned to be in the kitchen,
I knew I could learn to be on stage, but
I had to. I had to go through it in
real time in front of people, and that's humbling. And
I don't know why I was willing.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
To do that.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Awful lot of people are not. I think it's because
I was sober and I knew that whatever happened after
I got sober. It was all just a gift, because really,
if there were justice and fairness, I should have been dead.
So this was all kind of bonus. I'm still I'm
(15:58):
living in this bonus time. I got these bonus rounds,
and so that kind of rounds freed me to do
crazy things like get on stage when I knew that
I was not good at it.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
So you went into this new culture, build yourself up,
got some fans around you, got people to to really
raise an eyebrow that you had something to say, but
that you were kind of ballsy enough to do it. Frankly, right, absolutely,
And the book is called Saved by a Song, So
you know, you don't have to read the book to
(16:32):
make the assumption that you were saved by music and
that transition and that moment that you just talked about.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I honestly believe that to be true.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
And how how has it saved others? I think is
a big question.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
I want to get into that a little, Mary, because
you know, I was just when I said I was
stopping my track, I was thinking about you and Saint
Vincent's thinking about that read. You know, when you went
to search for where you were, where your birth, where
your a biological mom had dropped you off at Saint Vincent's.
(17:11):
And then the time that you know, you were struck
by when HIV took its toll, and and you really
were kind of speaking for that community that was really
really not only ostracized, but lost and like not having
a lot. There wasn't people wrapping their arms around them.
(17:34):
There weren't people wrapping around their arms around them. And
then talking about alcoholism itself in an addiction, not to
mention what of course, through home base, we'll talk about
the veteran experience. So I'm throwing a lot of these in.
You know, these these are chapters in your book, but
their chapters.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
In your life.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
In your life, yeah, and they're part of you. So
I'm kind of wondering when you sort of sit back
and you think about this, what's the thread here, what's
the commonality between all of this?
Speaker 5 (18:07):
I think it doesn't make sense while you're in it,
and then you start to make sense of it. It's
in retrospect. Here's what I think. I think I grabbed
on to music and songs because my soul somehow intrinsically
new that I had to express things that I couldn't
express any other way, and those things had a lot
(18:31):
to do with my addiction? What caused me to be
an attic at age thirteen? How does that happen? How
what happens? How does a person end up that way?
And the answer is is because they're in pain and
they're playing doctor. They're medicating their own pain. Okay, why
was I in pain? And I had to start tracing
(18:51):
it back, and for me, all roads led to Saint Vincent's.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
The day I was born, my mother.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Gave me up for adoption and I spent a year
at Saint Vincent's before I was adopted, and in that time,
my first year on earth, I didn't have parents and
I was not held enough. I was probably not fed enough,
and I ended up catatonic. And I didn't know any
(19:22):
of this until my almost late forties. Nobody told me
that I was catatonic when I was adopted.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
They didn't just sick well, sorry, go ahead, marriage.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
I didn't think it was something I should be told,
so I had to trace all this myself, and using
music and song as my springboard, like I'm going to
write songs about it, gave me the courage to do it.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Your mom said that it took a couple of weeks,
but she reversed that you say catatonia, So you weren't
looking left right, You weren't interacting with people at eleven
months old, which is obviously a tough thing, to tough
pill to swallow to someone to tell you that that
was you. But look what your mom, look at the
(20:05):
gift that she gave you.
Speaker 5 (20:07):
Absolutely that is probably, you know, uh, the story for
so many adoptive and children that that that you need
to attach to someone and without attachment you shrivel and
and and die as you would to live as a baby.
(20:28):
Uh And uh uh you know, the the gift of
adoption uh is one that uh uh uh that that
that I don't take lightly and I'm always going to
be grateful for that. That said, Yeah, trauma of that
first year uh and the attachment disorder it left me
(20:50):
with uh were something I had to contend with and
those were mine uh and I had to as an
adult start making sense of it, right. And this is
where music and song came in so handy, right, because
that's where I was driven to write about that kind
of real stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
And as I worked my way through.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
It, I started getting better and the whole in my.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Soul started closing.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
And at some point I was asked to work with
Darden and songwriting with Soldiers, and I had already had
a deep understanding of how transformative music and song could
be around trauma right from my personal story.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Right the theme really, so trauma is really kind of
a universal problem for kids, for adults, for civilians, for veterans,
and unleashing that opening that up is painful, but yet
what joy you can bring to somebody that goes through
(21:56):
that process. And actually, because you talk a lot about
how it's a tan, it's a way to talk about
things that you can't express.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Any other way. Yeah. Yeah, I look at it as alchemy.
It's magic.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
You take some of the darkest days of your life
and write about it in a song and you make
something beautiful out of it. I mean, that's alchemy. And
here's the catch. You're not going to outrun it. You
can't outrun it.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
It's with you.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
It's in you, it's in your body, it's in your brain,
it's in your soul, it's in your emotional makeup.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
You're not going to outrun it.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
And so for me, the answer was to stop running
and start slowly walking towards it and trying to alchemize
it with music and song. I didn't know that's what
I was doing. Of course, this is all in retrospect.
But when I start to discuss what I've been able
to do with the veterans, what we've been able to
do with the veterans, the way I look at it
is we're giving agency. You go from being the story
(22:57):
to being the story teller. The story tell teller has agency.
The storyteller is able to make choices and to decide
how the story ends.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Yeah, I mean you mentioned Darden Smith and Mary Judges
who started songwriting the Soldiers in twenty twelve. So now
we're looking at this is ten years ago, and that's
I met you know, I met Darden probably in twenty sixteen,
and like you and many, I was blown away by
the concept. It sounded like you had the resume in
a sense, because you've been there, done that, You've you've
(23:28):
been able to translate trauma. Now I'm going to read
your Rifles and rosary Beads song. If I may, Mirrors
frightened me. I don't recognize what I see A stranger
with blood on his hands. Brother, I'm not that man.
Rifles and rosary beats, you hold tight, you hold on tight,
(23:51):
you hold on to what you need. Vic it in
morphine dreams, rifles and rosary beats. There's a lot in that.
Mm hmmm, in that one. Stanza so much. You wrote
that with Joe Costello veteran, right, you remember sitting down?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I do. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Joe was withdrawn, gaunt. He wasn't interacting with the group
very much. Uh, he looked down a lot. He clearly
was in pain. And uh, you know he had written
a poem called Rifles and Rosary Beads and we talked
about it, and uh, the imagery was so powerful, the visual, Uh,
(24:35):
you know, the idea of what are you holding on to?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Over there in Fallujah?
Speaker 5 (24:39):
You know, some guys are holding their rifles, some guys
are holding rosary beads. And so I asked him what
were you holding on too? And he got tears in
his eyes and he said vicotin. I said, well, I
understand that you're we're on the same page there.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
I understand using medication illegally.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
Do to self medicate pain and fear and grief and
sorrow and separation.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And loneliness. We understood each other.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Did that change the dynamic?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
It did.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
We built trust right then and there right and then
he told me he didn't look in the mirror anymore,
and that's how that ended up in the song.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Now talking about the mirror, it reminds me of the mask.
It reminds me of. So we do some therapy at
home Base where it's mass therapy. That's stuff they do
at well to read, where you paint the inside and
you paint the outside, and the veteran can express how
they view themselves inside and how others view them outside.
And it really made me think of that when you
(25:51):
said the following. You know, you said, songs are what
this is what songs do best. They show our insides
on the out.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Humans are all in the same boat. This new vulnerability
is being witnessed and what it does it connects that
sense of self and also to each other, so that
outside and inside. I was, you know, listening to you
talk about that. I'm hearing the songs on the album.
(26:23):
I'm thinking about the lyrics, but to hear you describe
what they do, I think pulls it all together and
tell me about how it was when they when you
perform that song for his comrades, for his family.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Right, that's part of the Songwrity with Soldier's program is
we co write with the veteran and then we play
the song in front of the group in the early evening.
And when I started to play the song I'd written
with Joe, he was absolutely terrified because he was fixing
to be seen in a way he hadn't been seen before.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
He was shaken. About halfway in there, he was crying.
It was all I could do not to cry. We
almost always cry. It's part of it.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
You know. I'm not a therapist. I can cry if
I want to, and I cry because it's so moving
and because I know that what's about to happen is
he's going to be embraced. The deepest fear is that
he's going to be rejected. Of course, that's why he's scared.
They're all scared. They're scared of being rejected. But the
opposite happens. They they are embraced and empathy occurs. Everyone
(27:32):
in the room empathizes and in that moment they're no
longer alone. Someone sees them on the inside and says
the magic words me too, brother, me too. You know
he got you know, people putting their arms around him,
patting him on the back, saying thank you, thank you,
thank you. I know, I know that feeling. I know
(27:53):
I know what you're talking about. I feel that way.
It takes someone from the edge and brings them back
into the middle.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
It's huge mirrors fries me don't recognos what else.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
See the stranger with blood.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
On his hands. Brother, I'm no bad man.
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Raffles and rows beans you hold on to.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
June vacating moll Fien dreams, raffles and rolls, beans, raffles
and rolls, beans, you hold on to.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
You need.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
You continue to do that. Mm hmmm, yeah, you continue
to do the retreats. You mentioned also that that great
song with Beth Nielson Chapman where you sat around with
was it mostly wives?
Speaker 1 (29:19):
We sat around with wives or spouses?
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Yeah, yes, by spouses EOD wives talking about what it's
like to be married to a bomb expert and uh.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Oh, I didn't know that they were all EO D.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
It's so kind of a specific world within a world.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
The high risk, it's a very high risk job in
all branches of the military. Explosive ordinance disposal and being
married to bomb expert whose job every day is to
dismantle bombs built to kill them.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
That's just a crazy marriage. To me.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
That's just that's the most intensity I've ever heard. It
sounds like it sounds like a pressure cooker every single day.
And they're young people and they have kids and oh
my goodness, and their husbands come home different. They come
home eventually, and they come home different. And so that
(30:12):
led to this notion that there's a war after the war,
and we don't really talk about it, and so that's
the title of the song. I think you're referencing the war.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
The war.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
The war after the war is something that everyone in
that room could identify with, right because the struggles of
transition back and how you reintegrate back to your life
and back to your kids and your wife or your
husband or your spouse and your work. How is that
taking back to some of your other travels. I mean,
you've traveled and so many countries, married and played in
(30:47):
every state, and you connect with people, they connect with you,
they come to your shows. They also talk with you,
and you talk with them and you listen, tell me
about some of the stuff with Rifles and Rosary specifically
that veteran military spouse community. What comes to mind when
you think about playing those live in talking with the
(31:09):
military families during those gigs.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
Yeah, I mean I was in Texas last week. We
played outside of Wimberley, a little festival at a Texas
roadhouse on air condition ninety eight degrees, full on Texas
kind of thing, and after we played, woman came up
to the table in tears and wanted to hug me.
She said, the war, after the war, that's me. I
(31:33):
get those almost every single night when I play the
songs from Rifles and Rosary Bees. There's people in the
audience who have lived it, and what happens I think
is cathartic. On the surface, if you're standing there watching it,
it looks like there's sorrow, like it looks sad, But
I think it's catharsis.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I think it helps people to not feel alone, to help.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
People to know that they're going through some then a
lot of other people are going through and they're not
singled out. It's not unique to them, and they're not alone.
They may feel alone and they may not even have
anybody to talk to, but they're not alone. And all
they got to do is start talking about this stuff
and they'll find their community of other people. It's a
(32:21):
secrecy in silence that kills us. So I think of
it as a catharsis and aha, and like, well, maybe
I can talk about this.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I think there's hope in it.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
But if you were to look at it and not
know all that, it looks like an interaction of sadness,
but it's not.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It's transformative.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
That transformation can save lives. It sounds kind of you know,
it sounds out there, of course, to say that a
song saves a life. Okay here, I'm actually sitting in
the intensive care unit right now. Is a song going
to save a life today? No, but it's going to
save and restore and bring hope and change lives and
(33:03):
save lives over time. What you've been able to do
with this collection, with your albums and with your fans
is really I was getting at before, not only the
veteran community, right, this all began years ago. So that's
a powerful thing. It is to save other lives.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
It is, and I think it's connected to purpose.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
And I honestly have a theory that the ancients knew this.
I think with the advent of the music business and
the monetization of music as a product, we've collectively forgotten
what music is for. I think the gods gave us
music so we don't have to be alone. That's what
harmony is is in harmony together. And I think that
(33:51):
the ancient people's and not that long ago, knew that
we sing together to bring people home. And what are
so struggling with the inability to come all the way home?
They get here physically, but emotionally and spiritually, they can't
find their way home. And this is something that music
can expedite. And I've seen it in real time. And
(34:12):
I don't know, you know, listeners may not know this,
but we've lost more of our military to suicide than
we did in the twenty odd years that they were
fighting in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And if we have
something that can help them come home and find peace,
I think we should all be engaging in that and
(34:34):
using that as a tool to help them come home.
They served to us, We got to serve them. That's
how I see it.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
You know.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
I was in Austin, like I said, and outside of Wimberley,
and we stayed in Austin last week and there's a
statue of a homeless veteran on the walk by the river,
and soldiers have put their dog tags on it. So
much homelessness and suffering and suicide and pain in the community.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
That was of service.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Tell me, Mary, there's a lot of service going on.
In your years of songwriting and connecting with people indirectly
and directly, you have been saving people along the way
and really giving them an opportunity to change or to heal,
not just with this innovative, collaborative approach where you write
(35:22):
with people, but obviously your story that resonates.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
That's why I talk about it, don't I talk about
adoption as trauma. I talk about recovery from alcohol and
drug addiction and the possibilities that opens for people. After
you get sobered, you can live the life that you
were put here to live. You don't have to suffer
from an unlived life your whole life.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Yeah, back to that strange fire moment. Yeah, you're from
a military family. Yeah, and I don't think a lot
of people know that.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Yeah, my dad served in Korea and in the last
days of his life, uh, when when his brain was
not functioning, properly at all anymore. He kept thinking he
was testifying in some kind of military tribunal. He never
talked about being in Korea. He was in intelligence. Uh,
(36:15):
And he just kept in his in his you know,
assisted living, saying I need a I need a yellow
pad and a paper and give it to him. And
he'd give sir, no, sir, I cannot speak to that
sir like he was.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
He was a soldier. Again. It brought peers to my eyes.
He never talked about it.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
The only thing I knew about my father's military service
was that he wouldn't allow guns in our house.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Your mom as a spouse, when you thought when you
wrote that song with Beth, in a sense, your your
mom was one of those women.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
And I didn't know it. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
So much of this is mysterious, like you're doing something
that has connections that are real and you don't see
him until after.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
It's so mysterious.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Your dad. I mean, there's a I encourage please people
read this amazing book. You talk about alcoholism and you
talk about your dad, and this is a whole conversation
in and of itself. But to what extent do you
if you look back? I mean, is there a connection
there to his service, and I think so some of
his own medication, I think so.
Speaker 5 (37:25):
I think he experienced some kind of trauma. Yeah, and
it damaged him.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
I do I believe that.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
Yeah, because Mary, I mean you mentioned something. I think
this was earlier in the book. You talk about the
Vietnam War and you talk about your cousin Philip.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, Philip. Philip died young in Vietnam.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
He was twenty three Army KIA. You talk about the
Vietnam War and I remember, you know, I'm a little
younger than you, but I remember Walter Cronkite. He spanned
a couple, you know, several decades, and I can hear
that as well. And then you talk about your parents war,
and then you talk about your own war with your dad. Yeah,
(38:04):
which is heavy stuff obviously, but that time in your life,
even though it was so hard and you left home early,
there was something really powerful that gave you the tools
later in life. I always think back to that. I
always wonder, you know, there's a power, there's something that
was in there that gave you the ability. It wasn't
(38:27):
just being pulled over by that cop.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
You know. I wish I could bottle it.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
I wish I could name it, even, like, why do
some people get arrested for drunk driving and immediately when
they get out of jail start drinking again. Why do
some people get sober and some people just can't?
Speaker 1 (38:46):
You know? Why did some people have this.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Weird tenacity to go through being on stage and knowing
you suck, and knowing there's no way to get better
at it.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
You can't get better in your living room.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
You got to do it in front of people and
work through the stage fright, Why would I stick with
it and others be unable? I don't know what that is.
I think it's constitutional. I think I maybe have some
just innate gifts that allowed me to keep going and
(39:21):
to get sober.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
But I also think it's grace.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
I think there's some unmerited gift in that that you
don't deserve. That there's the notion of grace, amazing grace
saved a wretch like me.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I mean I relate to that. I was a wretch.
Speaker 5 (39:39):
So it's ineffable in so many ways, And there's no
way to talk about it without going into spiritual language,
which becomes more and more ethereal and starts to sound
like some sort of a religious pitch, and it's really not.
It's quite practical, and there's no theology behind it.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
There's just there's mystery.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
I know.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Yeah. I mean you mentioned to Amy Ray, who was, gosh,
one of my musical heroes, me too. You said being
terrified as part of the agreement, Amy, you know, and
I just that hit me. I was actually what was
I I was doing the dishes the other day. You
remember what you're doing sometimes when something somebody says something
(40:24):
so prolific. Anyway, and then you went on to say
that if going forward is the goal, fear is going
to be the emotion. So I think that connects to
what you're saying, Mary, is that there's not without trepidation.
There's fear here, and there's there's there's risks, and it's
not you know. I have to say, there's a lot
that connects to service, our service members. You're serving in
(40:46):
a different way and hats off. You know, behind you
is that beautiful flag. I'm seeing two things right now.
I'm seeing a proud military family member and a proud
person that works with veterans. And I'm seeing pride because
I know Pride Month is coming up. Yeah, absolutely happy
(41:08):
Early Pride.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Thank you. Yeah, that's another thing I need to talk about.
Speaker 5 (41:12):
And not not not be in the shadows about it.
You know, I'm a i'm a i'm a i'm i'm
a gay woman and i'm i'm i'm an advocate for
lgbt Q people and all that I think we're asking
for as respect and dignity. Uh and uh, you know,
(41:32):
permission to live our lives without being assaulted or ridiculous
laws being passed against our personhood.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
And you see a Ukrainian flag too.
Speaker 5 (41:45):
I'm I'm definitely uh concerned what's going on over there.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
I'm in awe.
Speaker 5 (41:53):
Of the courage of those people, uh, and the absolute
tenacity and commitment to their democracy. I think Americans can
learn a lot if we watch closely. What they're doing
to save their democracy is astonishing and I fully support
their effort.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (42:14):
So, yeah, flags are powerful symbols, and yeah, you can
you can definitely make a statement with a flag.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
You know, my daughter actually is fourteen and she I
didn't know that the Pride flag was. I think it
was in the seventies that it started to be more
of a part of our culture. But things have really
changed since that time is over fifty years, Oh my god,
so much. So. You're right, there's been some really amazing
advancements in the openness and the understanding is probably light
(42:46):
years than it was when you started coming of age.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Oh my god.
Speaker 6 (42:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
But at the same time, it's not going away, and
we know that there's a lot of lack of understanding.
How does that connect to your writing? If anything?
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Interesting to me is that when you go into music
and you start to take it seriously, and then you
take the stage and you start building a career, you
don't choose your fans, they choose you. And I figured,
you know, I probably would have a fan base that
was more or less predominantly gay lesbian, and that's just
not true.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
It's not my base at all.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
I connect deeply with heterosexual men who are a lot
like me. My fan base looks more like a Guy
Clark fan base or townsman Zant fan base, or you know,
Christ Christofferson or.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
The John Prime.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
It's those guys.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah, it's those guys.
Speaker 5 (43:41):
Those guys are I'm kindred with them, and my musical
development was deeply influenced by them and the people who
come to see me are people who would go to
those shows. So it really, weirdly doesn't have a lot
(44:01):
to do with music for me.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
There shouldn't be an expectation that it.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Does, you know, I'm the one who had it.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
Actually, I thought that's what it would be, but it's not.
And and I'm just grateful that that I have people
that come. Everybody's welcome, you know, if you can relate
to what I'm doing. I'm so happy to have you there.
Uh And and it's really a uh, a diverse group
(44:31):
of people that that come in. Uh And I don't
you know, I don't hide who I am. But I
also that's that's not the nature of my songs.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
I don't. I don't sing about being gay. I don't.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
I don't know how to write songs about that. I
write songs about being a human.
Speaker 6 (44:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
So so beautifully said, and so and so real. I mean,
you know what's interesting is that in a sense, you
become an allies or you not. You become a conduit
for all types to really you know, if there was
ever a connection. It's really, like you said, those guys
that may normally you know, they may listen to Guy
(45:12):
Clark and others and John Priyan. But now they're you know,
part of the whole family, and it's a great thing.
You know, it's interesting, Like I don't have a question here,
but I when I was in college, it was nineteen
eighty nine and I was in Burlington, Vermont. I remember
seeing the Indigo girls. We went. We heard about there's
such a buzz around that time, obviously, right, and here
(45:32):
I am, you know, straight dude, you know, eighteen years old,
mostly women. I think there was probably like eighty percent
women in the audience. I'm a songwriter as well. I'm
a musician. That was transformative for me. I mean, I
I'm still credible time, it was incredible. Time I play
it for my kids. You know, it's I just the
other day I was like, you know the song secure
(45:53):
Yourself to Heaven, Secure Yourself. I think I was actually
when I was on the one of those walks when
I was listening to your book. It probably triggered because
you know, the Indego girls you talked about. So I
put it on Spotify and I just sat there.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
I'm like, wow, so great.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
And their harmonies and just so what they you know,
what they did as you said. I think to Amy
in your interview something about like blasting open the door
for other people.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
They did, They kicked. There was a cultural moment.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
Their music came ahead of the changes that that we
were about to go through.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Uh, they blasted down the door.
Speaker 5 (46:32):
And Amy shocked me when she said, but we hated
ourselves and we were in the closet.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Like it didn't matter, did it.
Speaker 5 (46:40):
It happened anyway because the music, again is always the
music and song is always ahead of the songwriter. There's
a wisdom in the art form that transcends the individuals.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
And so when you know when when when.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
Like when you reference that I've saved lives with this practice,
I would push back a little and say, well, I
was a midwife in the process of salvation.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
But music and song saved the lives.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
Yeah, a midwife, you were the mid songwriter?
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yes, like that because it's not unique to me.
Speaker 5 (47:21):
Anybody who understands the art firm can do it, can
bear witness and help expedite that kind of experience that
pulls somebody from the edge back in.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Well, what did you say, don't leave music and songwriting
up to the professionals, right?
Speaker 5 (47:37):
I love that well, and what I'm saying there is
that if all we focus on is monetization and bottom
line and turn it into McDonald's where everybody's having McNuggets,
the experience that I describe in the book doesn't happen
because it's a product to be sold, more than more
(47:59):
than the mystery, to be approached with respect.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
And more than the process. M Yeah, And that gets
to the collaborative model, because you know, with with Darden
Smith and others, we've you know, work with you did
this amazing job with us with the frontline songs and
and and all the stuff you do with with a
with veterans. It's you can write one on one with
somebody which is beautiful, like you did with Joe, right,
(48:25):
Joe Costello and others. And there's a to me, there's
a certain there's a bond there that you can create
and you can that. Well, let me ask you what's
the difference Mary, when you are one to one with anybody,
whether they're you know, going through any type of trauma
and you versus that group and that cohesion.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
You know, the group is there to witness what happened
one on one in the workshops. So one on one
you create trust, and you you bear witness in non judgment,
and you take their story and turn it into their song,
and the group then is the witness, and the writing
of the song is only fifty percent of the deal
(49:10):
that causes transformation. Then you have to bring it to
a group of witnesses who then bear witness and see
the inside of that person that you've written with. And
the witnesses then experience empathy and embrace that person, and
they are brought to a new place of self acceptance,
an understanding of their own humanity, that that that that
(49:35):
they're not different than everyone else.
Speaker 4 (49:38):
I'm like you, brother, Yeah, me too, man you sister,
me too?
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Man.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Yeah. Mary, You've been so gracious. You're on the road,
You're doing a lot of things. What's next for you?
What's what's hot on Mary's mind? Now?
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Yeah, we're hitting the road.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
I got a new record coming out June third, and
so I've got tour dates and tour dates and tour dates,
and it's an exciting time.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Here we go again. Record number eleven is going eleven
to the world.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
Yes, I will not make a spinal tap reference, I promise,
but eleven beautiful. So we heard some of the music.
It's great. What do you excite? Is there a theme
to any of this album or is it sort of
purely old school a bunch of great songs.
Speaker 5 (50:20):
Well, what we've been through in the pandemic has made
its appearance there for sure.
Speaker 6 (50:25):
Yea.
Speaker 5 (50:26):
And love, the importance of love and the intensity of
what we've all been through. You know, we we've all
lost a lot of people. The numbers are staggering, and
so there's grief and there's loss, and there's love, and
so that's the nature of it.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
And how can how can how can we all really
identify as an understatement and how can we heal with
some of that? As you're you know, you're the spiritual leader, Mary,
You're you're sort of helping us get through through that
every day. So we can't wait to hear the old
the whole album. Thank you, Mary, Thank you so much
for your time and for all you do and for
(51:07):
your you know you're serving those who served and many others.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
So thank you, Thank you, Ron, thank you, Lucy. Appreciate
y'all doing this. Take care of y'all. It's dog enough
to see, so dog enough to see did darging enough
to see the light in anocean black.
Speaker 4 (51:36):
Indeed, in the middle of.
Speaker 6 (51:41):
The night, it's a hold on two, you know, let
those lights turn up block.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
I've drifted out, so.
Speaker 5 (52:03):
It's talking love to see the sun.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
I've been carried out, so fall it's talking love to
see this.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Thank you to our guest, Mary Gachet for your talents,
your support and service over the years for so many
Mary's books. Saved by a song is one you should
really read or listen to on Audible. I listened to
Mary's book and was entrance with not only the storyteller
coming from her own voice, but the fact that each
chapter is punctuated by a unique song. These songs are
(52:43):
really chapters of her life with a common thread of
resilience and recovery. And of course check out the new
album dark Enough to See the Stars, which is available
right now. Speaking of songwriting with Soldiers, if you've not
listened already, we have an episode called Warrior Healer that
was released February seventeenth, twenty twenty, that highlights a song
co written by one of our veteran alumni at Homebase
(53:05):
Air Force veteran Blair Morin and James House. So lastly,
I have two podcasts to recommend with Mary Gosche. We
met in twenty eighteen on a podcast I was co
hosting called Above the Basement. If you're interested in a
show that covers the lives and stories of musicians, check
out the show, produced and hosted by my friend Chuck Clow,
which has over two hundred episodes in the vault. The
(53:27):
episode we refer to in today's conversation is number eighty
one in February twenty eighteen. Also be sure to check
out Mary's conversation on the November twenty twenty one episode
of Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Broken Record. Home
Based Nation is the official podcast for the Home Based
Program for veterans and military families. Follow Home Based on
(53:48):
social media at Home Based Program. Please listen and follow
us on Apple, iHeart, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This episode was produced, edited and engineered by Lucy Little.
I'm Ron Hirschberg. Thanks so much for listening. We will
see you next time.
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