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In many ways, Brandi Carlile represents another generation of musicians. You know the type who didn't get their start on social media and weren't famous for being reality TV stars first.
Brandi's love of music was sparked at a young age and she, like many of the musicians she looked up to, got her start the old-fashioned way. Hours of dedicated practice, experimentation with different genres, and facing the trials and tribulations of playing the Seattle club scene helped to form the absurdly beloved artist she's become.
Of course, Brandi's music isn't the only thing her fans love about her. Her unwavering honesty, activism, and her unique relationship with her family also cause people to stop and take note. All of these subjects and more were tackled with grace in her 2021 memoir, "Broken Horses". And there's no doubt that this book shed light on who the artist truly is...
Why Brandi Carlile Wrote A Memoir
In an interview with Vulture, Brandi explained that many of her friends told her to write a memoir. This is because they knew the struggle that Brandi went through before becoming a rockstar, folk singer-songwriter, producer, wife, and mother.
"A lot of people had told me that I should, but they didn’t know my whole story — what happened to me around my adolescence, coming out of the closet, and my clashes with faith," Brandi explained.
"So I sat down one day in a hotel room to write a synopsis, like, 'Well, if I did [a book], what would I write these chapters about, and how many chapters would it be?' I intended to write a paragraph or a page about what each chapter was gonna be."
"I started, and the first chapter was one page, and the second chapter was two pages, and by the time I was on the fourth chapter, I was writing 15 pages a chapter. I realized I was writing the book. It was stream of consciousness; it wasn’t thought-out. It was almost like a mediumship of my memories as just a child and a person, how I walked through the world with my ambition. I just decided to stand behind it and make it a book."
How Brandi Carlile's Memoir Helped Her Heal
Despite there being a lot known about the acclaimed singer-songwriter, Brandi's memoir revealed elements of herself that had otherwise eluded her diehard fanbase.
In fact, they shed a glaring light on the true meaning of some of her more symbolic lyrics. And these lyrics appear filled with heartbreak, and struggle, but, at the end of the day, they also inspire her fans to get up and face another day.
"There’s something on every page that scares the s*** out of me," Brandi said of what she revealed about her life, family, and struggles.
"I just kept making the decision to walk through those doors and keep doing that. Part of me, I think, will always be coming out of the closet; part of me will always be emerging beyond what your understanding of me is, because there is an element to our industry that kind of glorifies, congratulates, and sells superhumanity. I have a wicked case of impostor syndrome anyway, and I guess I feel like if I just keep trying to tell the truth about my humanity and my just-like-you-ness, then I’ll start to feel more like I belong here [in the music industry]."
Brandi went on to say that delving back into some of her more traumatic early memories has caused her to evolve through them.
"[I got] to relive the awkward, slow, painful emergence of my coming out of the closet in a more evolutionary way. It makes me feel like I can grab a shirt off the rack at the store and ask the clerk how much it costs because I’m not worried about [them] thinking I’m poor anymore. It’s healed things, and it’s helped me make conscious decisions to emerge. But with that, there are consequences, and there’s anxiety, and there are all the things I wasn’t expecting when I decided to do this. I’m trying to hang on and learn from it."
How Brandi Carlile's Memoir Changed Her Career
While authoring a memoir both diversified Brandi's career and opened up a new door for financial success, it also taught her something new about storytelling.
"This memoir has opened my mind in terms of how I tell stories," Brandi admitted to Vulture.
"I probably won’t ever be as abstract a storyteller as I used to think. I used to believe that for a song to be loved, no matter how honest, no matter how personal it is to you, that you should steer clear of specifics or identifying markers, because then that’s not a cloak that someone else can put on and wear to heal or recover from a situation. And then I wrote “The Mother.” I’m specifically saying, 'I am the mother of Evangeline,' but I can’t tell you how many mothers of children not called Evangeline, or fathers, or queer parents, trans parents, or children who miss or love their parents — it’s become this thing where I’ve heard all these people’s different perspectives, and the more specific I was, the more clear I was about who I was talking about, the more trusted I was."
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