By Talula Schlegel
Jaymie Friesen released Sacred Sights from her solo project Well Sister early this November. Friesen had been tracking and mixing this EP since January, and finished the project four months later.
The former singer of From Giants had been creating and performing her new songs since the band’s dissolution and is now officially presenting them, accompanied by a handful of talented musicians, as a more refined version of her known work. The result is an entrancing and enchanting collection of songs. Stylus got a chance to sit down with her in a busy Sherbrook Street café for an exclusive interview on the inspiration for the EP.
Stylus: Tell me about the name for the EP. What meaning does it posses for you?
Jaymie Friesen: (Laughs) That’s a big one…I knew that “Sacred Sights” would be the single. I felt like it was maybe the strongest song, but I felt like it spoke most truly… it was kind of the anger of that album. It felt right to name the album that.
Stylus: The lyrics in the song “Falling,” “Please don’t stop your singing, you are my songbird” have always really stood out for me. Alongside being very beautifully written and sung, they have a sense of yearning to them as if you had a guide that you now covet. Can you explain what this song means to you?
JF: The line “you are my songbird,” that’s maybe a call out to what keeps me alive, that’s song and music. So it’s kind of for myself, ‘don’t stop singing.’ I often remind myself not to stop singing but (it’s) also for other people…song is food and song is healing. One of the things that’s challenging about talking about my songs is that there’s never a cohesive narrative. It’s not like I can just break it down, because often I have lots of different images and words and I kind of just mold them into something. So I can’t really say this song is about X-Y-Z. I think maybe the essence of “Falling” is about human brokenness, and that in our brokenness we are together and that should be understood.
Stylus: I always interpreted the song as ‘to someone’ but it’s more introspective than that.
JF: It’s both. It’s a reference to myself and to people around me, or to anybody who sings and anyone who just expresses themselves – don’t stop doing that! That’s what keeps us alive, y’know? Also I think in some ways the crux of that song is the line, “now we see the battle lost it’s just as worthy as a battle won.” I think it’s about even when we are defeated and broken and we’ve failed and we’re just down and out in the dirt, that’s where we find connection. That’s where we find love, and that’s where we meet as souls.
Stylus: The second song on your album, “Sacred Sights” touches upon feelings of doubt, worry, distance, and redemption in some form. They also mention a bomb being dropped on these sights. What is the literal translation of the poetry in this song?
JF: It’s a hard one. The whole song came out of a conversation I had with a friend about, why make art? Why make beautiful things when the world’s going the way it’s going? It seems so futile, our attempts to restore life. We feel so overpowered by mass forces in this world that are just destroying places that are so sacred. I mean life is all sacred. I think that verse… it’s this picture that came to me of someone walking to this site that’s just been blown up and their heart is aching and it’s a catastrophe but they’re not overwhelmed by that. They’re just going to slowly pick up their tools and use their hands and are going to start making something worthwhile. It’s still worthwhile to make something beautiful in this shit.
Stylus: I’ve heard that the song “Audrey” takes inspiration from a woman you sang for in a care home. Can you tell me what that experience was like and in which ways she influenced you to write this song?
JF: A thing I’ve done for the past couple years is one-on-one music with residents at the Misericordia (Hospital)… I had this three year, I guess you could say friendship, with Audrey and I never really got to know her because her cognitive ability to speak and express herself was quite low. I wrote the song while sitting with her. The guitar part came from our time spent together, then weirdly the song is about watching Audrey and her life alone and, in light of that, my own desire at the time to never get married or never have a family, and so I saw a parallel. I always felt a very kindred to Audrey and so it was always kind of like I found myself in her. The song is also about a heartbreak or the end of relationship. It’s a couple different stories that weave together.
Stylus: “Hands” is one you wrote while traveling in Spain. How was that trip for you and in which ways did the elements of that journey shape this song?
JF: When I was there I was walking the Commune of Santiago, which is a pilgrimage in northern Spain. I just walked for five weeks. “Hands” kind of came out of this spiritual crisis I was having on the walk that really had to do with this really awful rash I had on my hands. In a very literal way, the song was actually about my hands but it’s also a metaphor for what hands mean to me. I think the song came out of this place of not understanding how healing works, and why do some things in life heal and some things don’t. How come, on this trip, did my ankle heal, but not my hands? Now I extrapolate that into life… that’s something I often struggle with. Why did that person suffer from mental illness their whole lives and that person didn’t? So it’s me, at the heart of that song, wrestling with that question. But I have hope! I experience healing in some parts of my life, and others that haven’t. The song is talking about hands and feet but I would say it’s more figurative even though at the time I was literally talking about my hands and feet.
Stylus: Which song is best at bringing you back to the experience that it’s about?
JF: It depends on the day. Sometimes it just depends on how it sounds in a certain space too. I think the one that demands me to feel the most emotion is “Sacred Sights.” It’s like that with all my songs, but that one in particular. I can’t really perform that song unless I’m willing to be in it. It requires emotion to present or share it.
Stylus: When do you find your music comes most fluidly?
JF: Probably when I’ve been troubled or disturbed by something. When I’ve had some sort or emotional experience that is disconcerting to my heart, often my music is trying to make sense of something. Often troubling experiences are something we need to make sense of. It’s not to say I don’t make music when I’m not troubled by something, it’s just I have to do this. It’s therapeutic for me. The EP is more isolated experiences I went through, but there definitely have been a series of song that have come out of one experience and its repercussions.