Creative Genius 21 - Sam Parton: The Littlest Birds Sing The Prettiest Songs
Sam Parton (The Be Good Tanyas) "The Littlest Birds Sing The Prettiest Songs"
Episode Summary
In this episode Kate speaks with Sam Parton, founding member of the wildly popular Canadian Alt Folk band The Be Good Tanyas. Their debut album Blue Horse was named 2002’s top 50 releases by Q Magazine (UK) and the band would go on to release more albums cherished by fans all over the world. Their albums Chinatown and Hello Love were met with glowing reviews including four stars from Rolling Stone Magazine and the band sold out concert halls across North America and Europe.
Sam tells us about how trauma from her early childhood ultimately set her on a journey that would see her not only find her musical voice and people, but create what I think is one of the greatest Canadian bands of all time The Be Good Tanyas. She tells us what she thinks creativity is and what it wants from us, how she found her bandmates, the joy and challenges of collaboration, and how lyrics come to her - including the story of how one of my very favourite songs of all time by any band was written, The Littlest Birds Sing the Prettiest Songs (hear an excerpt of this song in the episode)
Things Sam and I talk about
-Her ideas on how creativity and creative intelligence are often part of a lineage and the yearning that can create within us
-How being a twin made her into a great collaborator
-Finding her long lost father and how that separation fed her desire to become a musician
-Growing up in the shadow of a sibling born with extraordinary musical talent, and in a home with tormented, abusive adults feeling that she had to do her music in secret and how the grief from those things ultimately drove her to find and express her own creative gifts
-The magic that can happen when we know how to approach creativity from a place of truly not knowing, beginner's mind.
-What is inspiration and why do we feel like we have to wait for it? What if it is waiting for us?
-How she met Frazey Ford, co-founding member of the be Good Tanyas
-The joys and challenges of creative collaboration
-How the words and melody for The Littlest Birds Sing the Prettiest Songs came to her and what the song means to her
Buy her music on Bandcamp!
Episode Notes
In this episode Kate speaks with Sam Parton, founding member of the wildly popular, Canadian Alt Folk band The Be Good Tanyas. Their debut album Blue Horse was named 2002’s top 50 releases by Q Magazine (UK) and the band would go on to release more albums cherished by fans all over the world. Their albums Chinatown and Hello Love were met with glowing reviews including four stars from Rolling Stone and the band sold out concert halls across North America and Europe.
Sam tells us about how trauma from her early childhood ultimately set her on a journey that would see her not only find her musical voice and people, but create what I think is one of the greatest Canadian bands of all time The Be Good Tanyas. She tells us what she thinks creativity is and what it wants from us, how she found her bandmates, the joy and challenges of collaboration, and how lyrics come to her - including the story of how one of my very favourite songs of all time by any band was written, The Littlest Birds Sing the Prettiest Songs (hear an excerpt of this song in the episode)
So many of us KNOW from a young age what we love to do, but so often it is overshadowed by our life circumstances, whether it’s childhood trauma, abuse, neglect, unsupportive parents or simply not having anyone in our lives to see us and cheer us on, or as in Sam’s case being so different from the people in her childhood home, that she grew up feeling like an alien in her own home.
Sam's drive to find her father, to fill in the gaping hole his departure from her life left, would eventually take her on a winding adventure that would give rise to a deeply fulfilling musical career and the ability to fulfill the calling of her musical gifts. And thank goodness for all this because the music and lyrics that Sam has been able to allow to come through her have woven themselves into the tapestry of my own (and I am sure millions of others) lives.
She had a strong drive to follow the lineage of creativity, to find out how the people who created music that spoke so strongly to her like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, were able to create those things.
Sam was a founding member of the band The Be Good Tanyas whose debut album Blue Horse quickly earned them cult status as a beloved Alt Folk Band, it was named among 2002’s top 50 releases by Q Magazine (UK) and the band would go on to release more albums cherished by fans all over the world. Their albums Chinatown and Hello Love were met with glowing more reviews including four stars from Rolling Stone. The band toured sold out concert halls across North America and Europe. Their music was featured in tv shows like Breaking Bad and The L word.
My excitement was because here I was sitting down in real life, with the person who had brought music and lyrics into the world that had been on the soundtrack to many of the important moments of my life for the better part of 20 years from weddings and births of my children to lazy sunday brunches and sunny sunday afternoons cleaning the house, in some way Sam had been with me through it all and here she was sitting down with me to tell me the stories of how it all came to be.
One of my favourite moments in the episode is when Sam tells the story of how the lyrics and melody for The Littlest Birds Sing the Prettiest Songs came to her. This is one of my very favourite songs of all time (not just from the Be Good Tanyas repertoire) we got permission to share some of the song with you which you’ll hear when we get to that part of the conversation.
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It was a chance encounter at the Vancouver Public library that brought us together way back in October when I was just starting the show. Like any adoring fan I may have gushed a bit and bravely asked her to join me in conversation on the show, hers was an immediate generous, warm and full-hearted YES. It took us a few months to line our schedules up and I am so pleased to be able to share this conversation and her music with you today. Here is my conversation with Sam Parton.
In the weeks after this interview was recorded, Sam and I went on a walk through the sun dappled forest near my home. We talked more about life, creativity, and how much music industry has changed, with streaming services making it more difficult than ever before for musicians to make a living with their music. I wanted share some ways you can support Sam and her music. You can find those in the show notes on KateShepherdCreative.com
To me Sam’s story is a beautiful love story, the love of a little girl for her natural born gift, the love of a daughter for her long lost father, and the love of an artist for creativity itself.
Sam gave me so many things to think about, I really appreciated what she said about putting down the projections of how we see others as being so much more prolific or professional than which can help us to be brave enough to take the risk of looking like we don’t know what we are doing - because from that place of lighthearted silliness magic usually happens.
And as usual the word I pulled for today’s show was perfectly perfect. It was inspiration. I got the truthbumps when she started talking about inspiration. Friends, I think she might be right. What if it IS the other way around? What if inspiration is waiting for us?
What would be available to you if you were to approach your creative practice as though inspiration was already right there waiting for you, and to allow yourself to approach creating from a place of truly not knowing anything and waiting to be shown?
Special Thanks to Sam Parton and Birthday Cake Media for permission to use The Littlest Birds Sing The Prettiest Songs in this episode
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Resources discussed in this episode:
- Bob Dylan
- Neil Young
- Dolly Parton
- Judy Garland
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