Marshall Plan

We asked Canadian singer-songwriter Amanda Marshall, who just released her new album Everybody's Got A Story, to name an album that changed her life.

"It has to be Nick of Time and I guess Madonna's first record. Madonna's first record was the first time that fashion and music collided for me.

But musically, it has to be Nick Of Time. It was the first time I ever listened to songs and song structures and how songs were written."

Pop Psychology 101: Everything you ever wanted to know about your favourite singer, writer or artist can be gleaned through literal interpretation of their work. Right? Art imitates life, truth is stranger than fiction and all that.

Yeah, it's a gross oversimplification - there is this thing called imagination, after all - but Amanda Marshall will freely tell you that there are some of her own experiences in every song on her new album, Everybody's Got a Story.

Oooh! Including the song Colleen, where she watches her wild and crazy gal pal having sex with some guy?

"No, but isn't that just a compelling image?" Marshall said with a laugh during a recent visit to Edmonton to promote the CD, released in November.

"Colleen is based on a girl that I knew, it's not specifically based on her character as a wild woman. I didn't steal her boyfriend, either."

No boyfriend-stealer she, Marshall broke on to the scene in 1996 with her self-titled debut album, spawning radio-friendly hits like Birmingham, Beautiful Goodbye and Let It Rain.

Her 1999 follow-up, Tuesday's Child, met with comparatively lukewarm sales, and the 29-year-old Toronto-born songstress took a year off touring and recording to make like Jacques Cousteau coming up from the ocean floor. You know, to decompress.

"On the second record, I can hear what I was trying to do," Marshall said. "I was really trying to hone my skills and get my level of technical proficiency to a point where I could walk into a studio and feel like I knew what the hell was going on."

The break between the second and third albums "gave me a little bit of time to kind of slip back into hanging out with no makeup and sweats, just going to the store every day and stuff," she said.

When she eventually returned to the studio with producers and co-writers Billy Mann and Peter Asher, the idea was to do a more groove-oriented album backed by street beats, which eventually came about courtesy of an unknown Bronx DJ named Molecules.

"I wanted the record to sound like the way I am hanging out with my friends," Marshall said. "And I wanted it to have an authentic edge."

The songs themselves, Marshall said, are wrapped around the notion that everybody's got a story that could break your heart - a lyric from the CD's title track.

"You see people on the TV and on the radio and you think you know them, but you don't," she said. "You know a select portion of their personality."

Some of the songs are directly autobiographical. Double Agent is about Marshall's not immediately obvious biracial heritage (her father is white, her mother is Trinidadian), while Brand New Beau - about a woman who comes home to find her boyfriend in bed with another man - is also based on personal experience, to an extent.

"I dated a guy and he eventually turned out to be gay. The specific storyline in the song is that she comes home and finds him in bed with another man. That didn't happen to me. It's an exaggerated version of my own experience.

"There are kernels of truth and of me in every song, and I wanted it that way, I wanted the record to sound like me, I wanted it to sound like the way I talk, I wanted it to be as accurate a reflection of me now as it could be."

Which begs the question whether the track Marry Me is a request to Marshall's longtime boyfriend (and bass player) Rob Misener, who shares writing credit on the ballad. She says it's not meant to be taken literally.

"I think (marriage) means different things to everybody, but to me it doesn't specifically denote ceremony and Vera Wang (gowns) and a church. My experience is it's possible to connect to someone and love them without being married, or without being conventionally hitched.

"I'm kind of a big believer that if things are good, why mess with it?"


	MARSHALL PLAN EDMONTON SUN SIDE ARTICLE:MIKE BELL/ ARTICLE: STEVE TILLEY JANUARY 3 2002 Side Article: We asked Canadian singer-songwriter Amanda Marshall, who just released her new album Everybody's Got A Story, to name an album that changed her life. Her answer? Bonnie Raitt's 1989 album Nick Of Time. "It has to be Nick of Time and I guess Madonna's first record. Madonna's first record was the first time that fashion and music collided for me. But musically, it has to be Nick Of Time. It was the first time I ever listened to songs and song structures and how songs were written." Canuck singer's got a story to tell in new CD Pop Psychology 101: Everything you ever wanted to know about your favourite singer, writer or artist can be gleaned through literal interpretation of their work. Right? Art imitates life, truth is stranger than fiction and all that. Yeah, it's a gross oversimplification - there is this thing called imagination, after all - but Amanda Marshall will freely tell you that there are some of her own experiences in every song on her new album, Everybody's Got a Story. Oooh! Including the song Colleen, where she watches her wild and crazy gal pal having sex with some guy? "No, but isn't that just a compelling image?" Marshall said with a laugh during a recent visit to Edmonton to promote the CD, released in November. "Colleen is based on a girl that I knew, it's not specifically based on her character as a wild woman. I didn't steal her boyfriend, either." No boyfriend-stealer she, Marshall broke on to the scene in 1996 with her self-titled debut album, spawning radio-friendly hits like Birmingham, Beautiful Goodbye and Let It Rain. Her 1999 follow-up, Tuesday's Child, met with comparatively lukewarm sales, and the 29-year-old Toronto-born songstress took a year off touring and recording to make like Jacques Cousteau coming up from the ocean floor. You know, to decompress. "On the second record, I can hear what I was trying to do," Marshall said. "I was really trying to hone my skills and get my level of technical proficiency to a point where I could walk into a studio and feel like I knew what the hell was going on." The break between the second and third albums "gave me a little bit of time to kind of slip back into hanging out with no makeup and sweats, just going to the store every day and stuff," she said. When she eventually returned to the studio with producers and co-writers Billy Mann and Peter Asher, the idea was to do a more groove-oriented album backed by street beats, which eventually came about courtesy of an unknown Bronx DJ named Molecules. "I wanted the record to sound like the way I am hanging out with my friends," Marshall said. "And I wanted it to have an authentic edge." The songs themselves, Marshall said, are wrapped around the notion that everybody's got a story that could break your heart - a lyric from the CD's title track. "You see people on the TV and on the radio and you think you know them, but you don't," she said. "You know a select portion of their personality." Some of the songs are directly autobiographical. Double Agent is about Marshall's not immediately obvious biracial heritage (her father is white, her mother is Trinidadian), while Brand New Beau - about a woman who comes home to find her boyfriend in bed with another man - is also based on personal experience, to an extent. "I dated a guy and he eventually turned out to be gay. The specific storyline in the song is that she comes home and finds him in bed with another man. That didn't happen to me. It's an exaggerated version of my own experience. "There are kernels of truth and of me in every song, and I wanted it that way, I wanted the record to sound like me, I wanted it to sound like the way I talk, I wanted it to be as accurate a reflection of me now as it could be." Which begs the question whether the track Marry Me is a request to Marshall's longtime boyfriend (and bass player) Rob Misener, who shares writing credit on the ballad. She says it's not meant to be taken literally. "I think (marriage) means different things to everybody, but to me it doesn't specifically denote ceremony and Vera Wang (gowns) and a church. My experience is it's possible to connect to someone and love them without being married, or without being conventionally hitched. "I'm kind of a big believer that if things are good, why mess with it?"