august 4,2000 »
k.d. language
of love
Continued from Page 19
FM for playing her latest single, “Summerfling.”
Long sheltered by the wall-to-wall dykefest
that is every k.d. lang solo concert, she has to
persevere to whip this alien crowd into her
mood. “C ’mon everybody, get up and dance
with me. I’m gonna show you the newest steps
coming out of L.A.," she urges, beginning to
vamp around the stage. As she launches into a
rockin’ version of her new song “When We Col
lide,” it feels more like worlds colliding. The
Sting crowd doesn’t know what to make of her
ditzy antics and her dizzying, Elvis-on-acid
moves, but the lang loyalists in the front rows
willingly press toward the stage, following her
uninhibited lead.
When I whined to her on the phone that we
feel cheated only getting her as an opening act,
she delivered the good news. “Not true— you’re
getting me twice! I’ll be back in November dur
ing my West Coast swing,” she promised.
Indeed, she confirms on stage she’s coming back
soon. “I can’t stay away from you,” she insists in
her sexiest voice. “It’s the consequences of tour-
mg.
It must be rough to capture the focus of an
audience when a steady stream of concertgoers
stumbles through the rows, searching for their
seats in the darkened hall, only listening to k.d.
lang by default. Yet by the end of her set, the
arena is about 80 percent full, and the Stingers
give her a hearty show of support. Or perhaps
they’re just thrilled she’s done?
So, what does she dread about going
on the road again? “It’s physically taxing.
I don’t get to ride my motorcycle, and I’ll
worry about my dog— I’ll miss her the
most,” lang says earnestly. Her lab/shepherd
buddy even inspired one of her new songs.
“The funny thing is, I wrote ‘Curiosity’ with
my dog in mind. My dog’s name is Saylor, and
we go swimming together a lot in the ocean.
We’re very fond of each other.”
Then realizing that it sounds like she won’t
miss her girlfriend of four years, lang adds, “I can
call her all the time, but I can’t talk to my dog.”
hat a difference the right woman
makes! Out with the old lyrics:
“Love, thing of might and dread,
stays the saviour and poison to all.” And in with
the new: “All my fears fall like tears of joy when
ever we collide.”
Eleven years ago, k.d. lang sang, “Won’t
someone save me from that full moon of love?”
Clearly, that’s no longer her plea. Where she
used to lament love that “ran away with a will of
its own,” she now croons, “Love’s great ocean
came crashing down on me, overflowing with
possibility.” Now that she has finally found her
“big, big love" in Leisha Hailey of the Murmurs,
lang has found it necessary to forsake the yearn
ing, melancholy moods of earlier albums to
express her current bliss.
Talking about the cause of this shift, lang
says the hardest part of being famous is “under
standing how you fit in and what you need to be
yourself. I didn’t reward myself enough during
the first 15 years.” Once she committed to
attaining more balance in her life, clarity came:
“Life is my art, and music is my craft.”
Back in her torch and twang era, lang sang,
“I just want to he an ordinary girl,” and after so
many years in the music biz, she finally got her
wish. By the end of her 1998 tour for the album
l in gest ch allen ge
of mif life,
W
ijincj with
one penon
lang says she lives very differently when
she’s writing songs. “I go into a very bohemian
lifestyle— eat a lot more, drink a lot more,
smoke pot, no exercise, sleep late.” But she’s
quick to clarify, “1 don’t smoke pot when I’m in
performance mode, and then 1 work out a lot.”
The result of two years of indulgence is her
new CD, Invincible Summer, lang describes it as a
“culmination of enlightenments: I feel in love
with my music again, my discovery of my core,
my invincible summer...it’s a youthful feeling.”
Helped along, no doubt, by the fact her girl
friend is 10 years younger than she is.
Her new album— which she admits is autobi
ographical, along with Ingenue and All You Can
Eat — charts the course of a burgeoning relation
ship from first wonderings to joyous acceptance,
then beyond the personal to universal love. It is
undeniably upbeat and breezy, and except for
“Love’s Great Ocean,” the one song written with
longtime collaborator Ben Mink, the CD
reflects a new direction musically. More pop,
more accessible, with some Brazilian rhythms
and retro ’60s beach music influences for spice.
To fans who are challenged by lang’s many
stylistic detours, she explains: “The older I get,
the more I see I’m a vocalist. I studied old-school
vocalists who had the liberty to move around
genres. I’m not a band; I’m not relying on a
trend. My sound is my voice.”
So with all the bliss in her life now, will we
ever get another torch song out of her? “It’s a
common misconception that melancholy is bet
ter fodder for art— honesty and integrity and
inspiration come from all emotions,” she
explains. “1 certainly know this state of mind
won’t last forever.”
And she’s eager to assure her fans this record
isn’t a total departure. “I try to remain true to the
k.d. lang sound: big, open-sounding melodies,
long melodic phrases, strings and steel guitar.”
Some of her special fans, however, might be
saddened by the new monogamous lang. In an
ode to the road girls, “Walkin’ in and Out of
Your Arms," lang used to warn she “can’t be
roped and tied down.” So how did Miss Girl in
Every Port, who must have left a “trail of broken
hearts,” finally get lassoed? It took Hailey, a
brash young dyke brave enough to make the first
move. As lang readily admits, “She just called
me up and asked me out!” It seems no one else
ever had the nerve.
And how many times has Miss lang felt the
consequences of falling in love? “Infinitely! I fall
in love every second.” Does she have any crush
es? Displaying spectacular taste, she replies
enthusiastically, “Cate Blanche«!”
So, what about this tour— what’s her mantra
for the first port girl who chases after her? “I’m
gonna run! I’m pretty much in love”— dramatic
pause— “we’ll just see,” she teases. “It’s probably
the biggest challenge of my life, staying with one
person,” lang confides, acknowledging her histo
ry and the flirtatious nature of many of her songs.
Sounding like she took advice from Jimmy
Carter, lang reveals she has another way to cope.
“Fantasy in yourself is one of the greatest places
to go.”
A
Drag, “I felt like I was on a treadmill.” Her anti
dote was to buy a home in the HollywcxxJ Hills,
launch into remodeling it, learn the wiy to
“Homo Depot,” get a dog and get a life w h her
honey.
Lang does paint a picture of domestic bliss
that any Northwest handy dyke can appreciate.
"Leisha is a carpenter, and we hang out in the
lumber section. Í like the smell of the wood,” she
enthuses, adding that it’s been gixxl for her head
to get hack in touch with real people.
The move from gray Vancouver, British
Columbia, to perpetually sunny SoCal also has
been good for her. She’s spent much of the past
two years hanging out on the beach, channeling
songs for her new album from the sand between
her toes.
“I have a little suitcase I carry around with
me that has paper, some pens and a tape
recorder,” lang explains. “The beach is a great
atmosphere for inspiration, especially when
you’re trying to get in a summer mood.”
nd fantasy is decidedly where legions of
langsters go. These true believers erect
shrines on the Internet and celebrate
lang’s birthday Nov. 2 as their high holy day,
“langmas.” They declare their undying love in
chat rooms and post their passion on message
boards. “She could sing me to sleep every night,
and it doesn’t matter if she’s gay or straight— it’s
the human being that she is and her emotions
and feelings,” one sincere woman writes.
They also upload fantasy stories about their
idol, often with an improbable happily-ever-
after ending in which a certain singer and the
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