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51 f
T
he trigger for the songs that would make up My
Remembrance Of You was the death of her grandfa-
ther, to whom the album would eventually be dedicat-
ed. Deep in mourning for him and two other relatives
who died around the same time, she retreated to a
house in the woods of Massachusetts for a year to take stock of
her life and writing.
“I really was mourning so heavily for him, and the way that I
made sense of all that loss was going up onto the mountain by
myself. I threw out every song I’d ever written and started to write
from a new place. I didn’t know what I would find, but I knew I
would either find something or I would give up the score, do some-
thing else. I knew that I was seriously at a crossroads and needed to
do music in a different way.”
Although it could be about several things, the song Some-
thing Crossed Over refers obliquely to this period of reflection
and renewal: “Like a thousand little birds set free/ when some-
thing crossed over in me.”
“That’s the time period it originates, yeah, something crossed
over. My thinking was that if I really was gonna step on stage every
night, say I actually was successful enough as a performer, to get to
tour hard and play every night, what am I gonna say? I didn’t want
to get caught up in something that didn’t feel authentic to me, so
that was what I was trying to find my way to. And I feel further
now in this process.”
I put it to Jones that her story reminds me a little of Oumou
Sangare, who is fêted as the ‘queen of wassoulou music’ of south-
ern Mali, yet has spent most of her life at a distance from her cul-
tural roots, living in the capital city of Bamako, albeit in a Wasulu
household. Both artists make music with a strong sense of place,
sharpened by a certain amount of having to imagine themselves
back into their own culture.
“I think there’s something almost more powerful about that
in some way,” Jones agrees, “because I’m so in love with it. When I
heard that music, it resonated with such longing for something
that I felt. It was almost like the music and the longing, the loss
that I felt, and having been separated from my birth family were
all intertwined, so that made me feel more emotional about it.
Coming to find this family that I’d missed, I’m less likely to take
them for granted. In the same way that I’m less likely to take the
music for granted, because finding my way back to it, it resonated
for me in such a deep way, and I didn’t know why. Whether it’s like
some gene thing, you can’t say. All I know is that when I hear it, it
moves me in a way that nothing else does.”
www.myspace.com/dianajonesmusic F
Photo: Jon Lusk
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