there was a time when it was all myspace. now there's facebook, iLike, twitter, and i don't even know what else because i have been in my own little world for the last year or so, since my daughter was born.

but. i finally do have a new album coming out in january! it's called interplanetary traveler and that's a picture of my little girl holding one of the advance copies that came in the mail today.

so are you still out there?... hmmmm....

my daughter is 9 weeks old now and she's awesome. beautiful. amazing. adorable!

i was pretty sure i would love being a mom, but i didn't know until now how much it would change me, how it would fulfill something in me i didn't know was missing, how it would bring this deep sense of rightness.

many of my new songs are love songs. when i wrote them, they were not really intended for any one particular person. maybe in a way, they were prayers: prayers that someone would come to be the beloved, to be the subject of those songs. i was thinking, of course, that it would be a man. but my prayers were answered, and my songs have a subject, and she is a beautiful little 9-week-old girl.

i know it's a cliche. but fuck it. cliches are cliche for a reason: they're usually true....
and it's true. becoming a parent has shown me what it truly means to love.

and it has of course re-prioritized my life. going out and touring is no longer high on my list. but i am still determined to finish this album and set it upon the world to do with as it wishes. i have always enjoyed that the most anyway: just putting the music out there and letting it have a life of it's own. letting the people find it who happen to find it. there is so much pushing and marketing and soliciting going on these days. i find all of that sort of ugly. so we will see. i will release these fledglings to the wind and they will find their nests where they are welcome.

that reminds me. everyone asks me if my daughter's arrival has inspired me to write new songs... honestly?... no. not yet. but anyway it's normal for me not to write a new album until the last one is finished and released. i think i just need that closure before i can move on.

how do you stay positive when life keeps giving you reasons to despair? is it 'realistic' to be pessimistic, and 'idealistic' to be an optimist?

there are a lot of reasons why people tend to assume that my life is or has been easy, that i haven't had to suffer much. and that's true, on certain levels. i have never wanted for material things, my body is and has been healthy, i get on well with people and tend to do ok at things that i put effort into.

but somehow, it also seems that my life has been filled with an incredible amount of emotional strife, personal betrayal, loss, loneliness, disappointment, and heartbreak. if i look at my past pessimistically (realistically?), i can see heartbreak after heartbreak - lovers and boyfriends, family, friends, dreams, etc... but what if i look back optimistically, idealistically? then can i see how i've loved so many, taken risks, adventured, reached great heights, and had beautiful things in my life? are those things negated because the love was unreturned, the risk was a losing bet, the great height was a great fall, or the beautiful thing i had was lost?... nothing is permanent in this life. change and death and endings are inevitable balancing forces of birth and beginning. maybe it's just a matter of accepting that, and then choosing how much of your attention you want to put on either end of the spectrum.

over the last couple of years since i released choreography, i have challenged myself to write songs from a more positive place. for example, there is a song called firefly that i posted on my lauren hoffman work in progress page. it's about feeling so much love that it is as if the whole world is made of my love and exists only to give that love to one person... but in real life, i was in a situation where the love i was feeling was unrequited and the man in question was kind of stringing me along. i decided, instead of focusing on the pain and disappointment of that, to celebrate and bathe in the love inside of me, that amazing wave just waiting for the right shore to finally break upon.

it is interesting how at a time when i have tried to focus more on the positive, life has given me some of my biggest challenges. lately, someone came into my life like a wolf in sheep's clothing and gave me a very good reason to lose a little bit more faith in the goodness of humanity, to side with pessimism and cynicism, and call it 'realism'... i don't want to do that. i don't want to look out in the world and see evil and brokenness and weakness and despair. i don't want to teach my daughter to see the world that way... but... i don't know how much more, personally, i can take. i feel like i am going to have to learn how to find a balance and protect myself a little more, be a little more careful... see the good in people and have compassion, but watch out not to feed myself to the wolves.

right now, honestly... john mayer. i think it's his latest album and it's called continuum.

i originally went to his itunes page because i'd been hearing the song "waiting on the world to change" on the radio and it was becoming a guilty pleasure. but then, once i started listening to song samples from the rest of the album, i liked the vibe, and the sound of the album. it's classic, like a cross between marvin gaye and, well, i don't know, some white guy : )

you can tell that this band is not a bunch of hired-guns but a real band who've been playing together on the road for a few years and really know how to listen to each other, how to build a groove, and how to be tasteful and supportive with their parts.

my favorite songs on the album are probably "i don't trust myself (with loving you)" and "slow dancing in a burning room". but honestly, it's become one of those rare albums that i can listen to all the way through and enjoy pretty much all the songs.

but lately i'm also really into brandi carlile. she's supposed to be sort-of country i guess, but to me it's just good songwriting with an acoustic, americana flavor. she claims jeff buckley as an influence, but i don't really hear that. sometimes her melodies remind me a little of starsailor though...

she has two albums, brandi carlile and the story, and they are both great. in this case, i really do love the singles - from the first album, "what can i say" and from the second, the title track, "the story"... you can tell that they had a little more budget for the production on the second album, and that's cool, but i think i actually like the simpler sound of the first one better. anyway, it's all about her amazing voice; it's evocative, human, stong, but vulnerable - gorgeous.

other recent guilty pleasures?

"no one" by, oh yes, alicia keys

and i've revisited a guilty pleasure song from days of yore:

"un-break my heart" - toni braxton

also, i got the new death cab for cutie album, but i haven't really gotten into it yet. sometimes these things take me awhile.

oh, and i've had the pleasure of hanging out in the studio while bella morte put the finishing touches on their new album, which will be out in october and is awesome, rockin, and beautiful.

i had about a 3 month delay while i sorted some things out in my head ... one thing: i’m going to be a mommy! ohmygodholyshitwow... and the other thing: can i be a mommy and still be a singer/songwriter?...

and the answer is yes, at least i hope so!

today was fantastic. we didn’t expect to get so much done, but we started exploring a song that was, as far as arrangement is concerned, a bit of a question mark, and we found some beautiful things. i’m really excited to be working with asi, and amazed that i found a musical soulmate in this unlikely part of the world, so far away from home...

so i’m back in the studio (which feels like home, no matter the country), thrilled to be doing my very favorite work all day long. and i love knowing that my baby is growing in me while i make music everyday, and all those soundwaves and good vibrations are nourishing us both. all of my records have been special exeriences for me, but that is what is going to make this one extra special for me.

i added some new stuff i'm working to to my alter-ego profile, mirabai. you can find the downloadable songs at www.myspace.com/lovemirabai

they are works in progress and i'd love your feedback! so go to www.myspace.com/lovemirabai, add me over there, download the songs, have a listen, and comment or message me.

thanks!
xo
lauren

i loved the movie "once". it was the first film i've seen to capture the life of a songwriter or performer in a way that is consistant with my own experience. in general, i love movies about the artisitc struggle, like "amadeus" about mozart, and "all that jazz", about bob fosse, but i find that most films that include characters who are supposed to be singers and/or songwriters don't hit the mark. they usually seem cheesy or superficial or overly melodramatic. maybe in this movie, the difference is that the actors aren't really actors; they're singer/songwriters...

so i am thrilled that glen hansard and marketa irglova won an oscar for their song "falling slowly" from that film. i felt it was a win for independent musicians the world over; it was a win for those artists who just keep doing it, despite the endless walls that pop up in front of their faces, despite the heartless steamroller of the music industry, despite the emotional rollercoaster of the artist's lifestyle. god knows, i buckle under that weight often enough. but when i look out there and i see someone kinda like me succeeding in such an unlikely way, it really does help.

also, the chick with the tattoo who wrote "juno" won for best screenplay. kick ass.

new songs, new name, new myspace profile:

www.myspace.com/lovemirabai

ah the joy of the newly penned tune, there is nothing like it. and today it came, all in a rush, in the 30 minutes i had before meeting my friends for lunch.

and i'm still giddy, like the afterglow of a perfect first kiss.

these days, life feels like a new blank book, waiting to be filled with stories and adventures. i don't know what will unfold in the next chapter, but i'm on the edge of my seat, ready to find out.

♥
lauren

ten years ago my first record was released, and ten years ago my friend jeff buckley died. i never thought that i would have to carry on without him out there, reminding me why i'm doing it, poetically pep talking me at 3 AM, sweaty phone pressed to my ear. i was such a child then, and there are so many things i wish i could have done differently, things i wish i could change. but mostly, i wish he was still around so we could look back and laugh, saying "remember? remember when i was so young and confused by love and acted like an idiot?... forgive me?" i wish he could hear the songs i write now, the voice that i only found after he left. i wish i could hear the songs that he would write now, at forty, with all that unlived life redeemed. he had so much more to live.