AGENDA . Agenda Lead

Deep Water

k.d. lang is back in a big way.


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Published: Feb 20, 2008

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It's been seven years since k.d. lang has penned an album. Not that we haven't loved hearing her perform the hits of her finest fellow Canucks on 2004's Hymns of the 49th Parallel. And she can sing the phone book as often as she wants with Tony Bennett. But lang's refined, longing lyrical refrains so suit her swooning croon, we needed the real stuff, the hard stuff. Not only did lang write the coy and languid Watershed, she's also the producer. Magical.

City Paper: First questions first: You're on Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends singing with her on a remake of "A Love Song." Is she an idol of yours?

k.d. lang: She was the Canadian singer/songwriter when I was a kid. She's very natural and different-looking and I totally had a crush on her. She was a big influence on me, in a lot of ways. But she's known all that about me forever. Other than my dog, Trojan, she was my first hero.

CP: Was Watershed about taking complete control of your sound?

kl: I tried to not change the original intent of the songwriting as it developed from the early performances. I wanted the first instinct of that process to ring clear. I felt they'd be more protected by me producing it than someone else.

CP: There's a spiritual openness to the narrative of "Dream of Spring," and "Comin' Home" seems to take from the dharmas within Tibetan Buddhism. Are you Buddhist, or are you just open to the heavens?

kl: I've been practicing for years. I think I've always been a Buddhist instinctively — my philosophy has always run parallel to those beliefs.

CP: So is your karma in order?

kl: [Laughs] No. It's most certainly not in order. I have to clean that up.

CP: You seem to have slowed down or gotten away from the pop treadmill. Do you write differently than you once did?

kl: I don't know that I've slowed down. The cycle's changed. I still feel as if I do it at a healthy pace. I don't think the writing process is the same for me anymore — I don't look at it like a big mountain. I let things go more. I mean, I work very hard, but I don't sweat it.

CP: Well that's freeing. What happened?

kl: It came to me gradually. Age was a factor, too. But you let go of expectations. Plus, being on a label like this [Nonesuch] has afforded me a certain level of support and freedom to do what I want. There's no external pressure to come up with a hit single.

CP: So was having hits like you did a blessing or curse?

kl: Oh, definitely a blessing. It just gets hard to deal with it — especially if it becomes addictive. You begin to like the taste of it, and you want it again and again and again. And it gets like sugar. Or like drugs, I suppose — very exhilarating, totally tantalizing. [Laughs] But everything in moderation, you know?

k.d. lang Sun., Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m., $39-$80, Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999, kimmelcenter.org