This little podcast I do has managed to build two useful assets: a much bigger audience than it used to have, and a back catalogue of fascinating interviews. Over the next couple of months I’ll introduce the audience to the archive. Here’s kd lang.
It was cold on the last day of February in 2023 when I met the legendary singer in a Calgary podcast rent-a-studio. Beau, the recording technician, let us in. I’d never met lang before, and we’re both shy. I’ve heard her give the sort of tentative, good-faith interview that never really goes anywhere, and there was no guarantee this wouldn’t be one of those.
Fortunately, I’d been so surprised to land this interview that I was determined not to mess it up, so I’d prepped to the gills, listening to all her albums, reading a lot of old journalism about her, watching old videos. I had specific questions about specific aspects of her career and craft.
In real life I didn’t start listening closely to her until the extraordinary 2002-2004 run that began with A Wonderful World, her duet album with Tony Bennett, and peaked with Hymns of the 49th Parallel, her album of Canadiana covers backed by a string orchestra, which is one of my favourite albums in any genre. But my questions started much earlier, with her acceptance speech when she won the Juno award for Most Promising Female Artist. She wore a wedding dress and her speech was a list of promises. Get it? Most promising.
A joke, obviously, but also a real promise, not only to the rest of us but to herself. “I just know that it was important for me to understand the gravity of being a public figure,” she said when I asked her about that speech, “and a musician especially. I think of it as such a privileged life.”
From that moment in the interview, I knew we’d be fine. A decision to give an interview is actually a few decisions. The first is whether you’re going to show up and let a stranger ask questions. The bigger decision is whether you’ll think about the questions and give real answers. Sometimes you don’t even notice you’re making that latter decision. I’m always grateful to kd lang for fulfilling the promise of this interview.
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I am grateful to be the Max Bell Foundation Senior Fellow at McGill University, the principal patron of this podcast. Antica Productions turns these interviews into a podcast every week. Kevin Breit wrote and performed the theme music. Andy Milne plays it on piano at the end of each episode. Thanks to all of them and to you. Please tell your friends to subscribe to The Paul Wells Show on their favourite podcast app, or here on the newsletter.
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