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Speaker 1: Music Saved Me.

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Speaker 2: Musicians on Call is a charity that is perfectly aligned

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Speaker 2: with the mission of this podcast, delivering the healing power

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Speaker 2: of music since nineteen ninety nine. Why not become a

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Speaker 2: volunteer or a supporter by going to Musicians on Call

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Speaker 2: dot org.

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Speaker 1: We're dealing with alchemy here. Alchemy is an ancient form

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Speaker 1: of magic, but it can be explained in some ways.

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Speaker 1: I would say maybe turning coal into a diamond is alchemy.

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Speaker 1: There is a thing that happens in music and song

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Speaker 1: that is hard to explain. Why does a sad song

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Speaker 1: make you feel happy? That is taking darkness and turning

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Speaker 1: it into light. That's alchemy.

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Speaker 2: This podcast is called Music Saved Me and on each

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Speaker 2: episode we'll look at a musician, will delve into their

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Speaker 2: story their deep connection to music. We'll talk with their

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Speaker 2: fans everyday, people with their own story to tell about

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Speaker 2: how music has saved them in challenging times. Today, we

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Speaker 2: have the privilege of talking with a remarkable artist and author.

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Speaker 2: Mary Gochea is best known for her soul stirring songs

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Speaker 2: that have touched the hearts of so many. She's not

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Speaker 2: only a talented singer songwriter, but also the author of

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Speaker 2: the captivating book Saved by a Song, and how perfect

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Speaker 2: for her to join us today. In this episode, we'll

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Speaker 2: explore the incredible journey of this acclaimed musician, her profound

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Speaker 2: connection to songwriting, and the powerful tales of redemption and

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Speaker 2: transformation that have shaped her artistry. Mary, Welcome to Music

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Speaker 2: Saved Me. It's so great to have you here.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I'm excited to be here.

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Speaker 2: In your book Saved by a Song, you talk about

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Speaker 2: the profound impact that music has had on your life.

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Speaker 2: Can you share with us a specific moment when you

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Speaker 2: realized that music saved you.

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Speaker 1: Well, honestly, I think it's been more of a sess

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Speaker 1: than an event. But there came a point as a songwriter,

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Speaker 1: as as I took it more and more seriously and

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Speaker 1: decided to really dedicate my life to it, as as

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Speaker 1: as a as a person who came to it later

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Speaker 1: in life. It wasn't my first career, it's my It

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Speaker 1: wasn't even I didn't take it in as a career. Actually,

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Speaker 1: it was something I did on the side after I

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Speaker 1: got sober, uh, and I began to take it more

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Speaker 1: and more seriously. So it's my second career and Uh,

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Speaker 1: I guess there was a point a couple of records

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Speaker 1: in where I realized, my goodness, this is this is

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Speaker 1: more than more than what it looks like on the surface.

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Speaker 1: For me, it became purpose. It became a way of

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Speaker 1: processing the world in my life, became a way of

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Speaker 1: connecting and building empathy, building bridges. I'm all about bridges,

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Speaker 1: not walls. I think that my awareness of the power

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Speaker 1: of song is continuing. The magnitude of the power of

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Speaker 1: song is amazing to me, what he can do. I

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Speaker 1: was just at a thing I'd never done before. It

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Speaker 1: was a storytelling festival, and somebody was wearing a shirt

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Speaker 1: and he said, the shortest distance between two strangers is

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Speaker 1: a story well told and beautiful. I think as a songwriter,

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Speaker 1: I would certainly agree, and I might say the shortest

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Speaker 1: distance between two strangers is a story song well told.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely. You were just speaking of the power of music,

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Speaker 2: how tremendous it is. I have to ask you. It

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Speaker 2: sounds a little weird, but I don't think so. Do

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Speaker 2: you feel that music has supernatural healing powers?

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Speaker 1: Will yes. I would characterize it like this, We're dealing

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Speaker 1: with alchemy here. Alchemy is an ancient form of magic,

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Speaker 1: but it can be explained in some ways. I would

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Speaker 1: say maybe turning coal into a diamond is alchemy. It

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Speaker 1: can be looked at scientifically. The pressure, the pressure. The pressure,

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Speaker 1: the pressure transforms coal into diamonds. There is a thing

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Speaker 1: that happens in music and song that it's hard to explain.

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Speaker 1: Why does a sad song make you feel happy? What

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Speaker 1: is it that this art form brings that allows some

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Speaker 1: of the worst things, whatever happened to a songwriter to

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Speaker 1: be sung and in that interaction or in that action,

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Speaker 1: turned into something beautiful that other people will thank us

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Speaker 1: for singing. That is taking darkness and turning it into light.

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Speaker 1: That's alchemy. And if you want to take it to

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Speaker 1: another level of discussion and call it supernatural, I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to say no to it. It's transformative.

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Speaker 2: There's songs deal with deeply personal and emotional themes. How

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Speaker 2: do you navigate that. It's a fine line between sharing

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Speaker 2: your own personal experiences and also making your music and

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Speaker 2: songs relatable to a wide audience.

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Speaker 1: Good point. Here's what I teach, and here's what I understand.

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Speaker 1: The personal is pretty boring. It's just my little life,

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Speaker 1: my little diary, my little comings and goings and interactions

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Speaker 1: with people that went well or poorly. Nobody cares about

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Speaker 1: my personal I mean, I'm I mean, we care about

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Speaker 1: celebrities personal just as gawkers. But here's where I can

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Speaker 1: get people interested is if I go two or three

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Speaker 1: flights down from the personal and enter the deeply personal.

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Speaker 1: I think this is where we all meet. We all

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Speaker 1: meet at what it means to be human. And that

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Speaker 1: deeply personal reality is not something we talk about at

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Speaker 1: cocktail parties. Sometimes we never even talk about it with

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Speaker 1: our family. And the deeply personal is where we intersect

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Speaker 1: in this life. And I think great artists articulate that,

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Speaker 1: and people find each other there. That is what's interesting.

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Speaker 1: I always say to my students that songs are a

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Speaker 1: great places is to tell your secrets, not personal secrets,

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Speaker 1: not who kiss who or who cheated on who, but

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Speaker 1: what what you truly genuinely feel about what's transpiring in

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Speaker 1: your life and in the world, and your confusion and

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Speaker 1: your alarm, and your empathy and and and your your own,

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Speaker 1: uh day to day experiences of life. In a way,

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Speaker 1: it's where we it's where we go in and take

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Speaker 1: our guard down. You know, it requires vulnerability.

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Speaker 2: It does and sharing with people, even if it's not

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Speaker 2: your specific story, it makes them feel that they're not

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Speaker 2: the only one that's it.

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Speaker 1: That's the job, the job. The job as a songwriter

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Speaker 1: is to get the listeners, go Mary, play my song.

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Speaker 1: They take ownership of the story because it is their story.

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Speaker 1: One of my songwriting heroes and a man I traveled

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Speaker 1: with for a bit, was a songwriter from Texas named

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Speaker 1: Guy Clark, and he used to say, Look, we're all

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Speaker 1: living the same life. We just hit the marks at

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Speaker 1: different times, at different points. What it means to be

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Speaker 1: human is true for all humans. We share the human condition.

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Speaker 2: So true. Many people, obviously, as we're talking about this,

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Speaker 2: turn to music during difficult times in their life. I

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Speaker 2: have everyone I know has at some point in time.

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Speaker 2: Can you tell us I think you just did a

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Speaker 2: song or a particular artist that has been a saving

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Speaker 2: grace for you in your life.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, there's hundred yeahs at different times in my life.

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Speaker 1: So many. And you wouldn't expect, like I would say,

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Speaker 1: Iggy Pop and the Carpenters. Interesting, you wouldn't expect that

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Speaker 1: from folks saying like me, there's a time green on

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Speaker 1: Red Iggy popped the violent films, Lou Reid, I'm listening

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Speaker 1: to that and holding on for dear life. There's a

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Speaker 1: time carrying Carpenter's vocals resonated so deeply. Something in her

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Speaker 1: voice I felt her. I think her tragedy was in

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Speaker 1: her voice, and it resonated her her strength and her situation. Uh.

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Speaker 1: She was a woman trapped in a time that was

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Speaker 1: very very hard to be a woman, much less of

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Speaker 1: a woman drummer. You know, she she broke a lot

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Speaker 1: of stereotypes. Uh, and Uh, I think that the pain

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Speaker 1: was in her voice. It resonated for me. So so

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Speaker 1: I went through a lot with the Carpenters and and

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Speaker 1: those early early punk bands. Uh, you know, the clash,

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Speaker 1: the a of some of the iggy stuff in the

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Speaker 1: early days. And I always always always turned to John

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Speaker 1: Prime as well, his sense of humor, his ability to

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Speaker 1: see the light inside the darkness. So many Leonard Cohen songs,

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Speaker 1: Bob Dylan songs, Bruce Springsteen really has been an important

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Speaker 1: artist for me and then people in my own genre.

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Speaker 1: You know, listen to William Steve Earle, Emmy, Lou Harris.

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Speaker 1: The younger ones that are coming up now speak to

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Speaker 1: me too. Tyler Childers Stergel Simpson. They're a lot younger

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Speaker 1: than me, but they're really resonating. The list is endless.

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Speaker 1: It goes on and on and on, and we hold on.

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Speaker 1: I hold on to these songwriters in their songs with

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Speaker 1: dear life sometimes for dear life sometimes.

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Speaker 2: And still to this day, you'll tap back into that

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Speaker 2: one needed for yourself.

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Speaker 1: Yeahtoby Keiths got a song I can't stop listening to,

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Speaker 1: Don't Let the Old Man In.

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Speaker 2: That's the best. I love him, Oh my.

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Speaker 1: Goodness, as he battles stomach cancer and fights for his

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Speaker 1: health and his life. This is a saying that he

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Speaker 1: picked up on that he wrote a song about. And

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Speaker 1: it's a Clint Eastwood like, hey man, you're ninety one

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Speaker 1: years old, How the hell do you still make movies?

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Speaker 1: And Clint said, I don't let the old man in,

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Speaker 1: and a resonant for me. You know, I'm sixty one

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Speaker 1: years old. But sometimes the old man or the old

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Speaker 1: woman's comes knocking and you got to answer the door

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Speaker 1: and go, we're not doing this today. Yeah, that song

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm repeat, repeat, repeat, How old would you be

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Speaker 1: if you didn't know the day you were born? What

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Speaker 1: a line? What a line? What a song. It's not

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Speaker 1: just a song, it's life instruction.

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Speaker 2: And one other little bit of advice is just taking

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Speaker 2: down all the me errors in the house. Tell me Mary,

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Speaker 2: describe songwriting. Why is it a therapeutic process?

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Speaker 1: I like that distinction. You know a lot of folks say, well,

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Speaker 1: you're doing therapy. Like, no, I'm not doing therapy, not

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Speaker 1: with songwriting. I do therapy with my therapist. But songwriting

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Speaker 1: is therapeutic in that it helps process. There's a processing

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Speaker 1: that happens when I write a song that helps bring

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Speaker 1: some clarity, but it doesn't free me from having the

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Speaker 1: need for therapeutic help. And when I do have that need,

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Speaker 1: and I've had it for many, many, many years, I'll

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Speaker 1: I'll speed down my therapist and get back in there.

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Speaker 1: I don't do it as often as I did, but

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Speaker 1: she's there and I know her number. But the process

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Speaker 1: of writing a song is trying for me, trying to

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Speaker 1: find clarity. And I think maybe that's what therapy is

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Speaker 1: as well, is looking for clarity for persanity and reality

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Speaker 1: and making decisions based on solid perceptions. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: the misperception of the world and the misperception of what's

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Speaker 1: happening that creates dysfunction and sometimes mental illness, and so

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Speaker 1: the clarifying process of songwriting for me is very about therapeutic. Now,

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Speaker 1: not everybody writes that way, and they don't see this

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Speaker 1: art farm as a way of doing that. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's so many different approaches and everybody's welcome and you

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Speaker 1: can do it your own way. I'm not endorsing or

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Speaker 1: saying this is how it should be done. I'm just

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Speaker 1: saying this is how I do it.

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Speaker 2: Your song Mercy now is resonated with countless listeners. Tell

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Speaker 2: us about the inspiration behind the powerful song and why

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Speaker 2: you think it is connected with so many people on

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Speaker 2: such a deep level.

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Speaker 1: You know that continues to amaze me. A song that

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Speaker 1: I wrote in two thousand and two, people come up

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Speaker 1: to me every night when I play, with tears in

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Speaker 1: their eyes and say that song, that song, it keeps

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Speaker 1: reinventing itself. That song, it keeps reactivating itself. I wrote

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Speaker 1: it in such a way that it didn't intrinsically get

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Speaker 1: caught in political events of the year two thousand and two.

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Speaker 1: I think it's a good example of getting past the

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Speaker 1: personal into the deeply personal so that it doesn't it

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Speaker 1: didn't attach it to itself to the specific going ons

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Speaker 1: of that time, But what inspired it was was the

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Speaker 1: specific going ons of that time. I knew enough about

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Speaker 1: songwriting at that point to know that I wanted this

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Speaker 1: to be a bigger song than was what it would

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Speaker 1: be if I said exactly what I was referencing. It

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Speaker 1: was inspired by the US response to nine to eleven.

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Speaker 1: It was inspired by the Spotlight Report reports on the

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Speaker 1: rampant child sexual abuse in the parishes of Boston, the

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Speaker 1: horrific number of priests in handcuffs being arrested for child abuse.

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Speaker 1: I lived in Boston at that time. It was mortifying.

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Speaker 1: At the time, the current dictator of North Korea's father

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Speaker 1: was testing nuclear weapons. It was inspired by that, but

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Speaker 1: I didn't reference that. That was what was happening if

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Speaker 1: you opened the newspaper. But what I tried to write about,

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Speaker 1: and I think I successfully did, was what was going

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Speaker 1: on inside of me as a response to that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just to let you know I'm I'm

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Speaker 2: from Boston as well, and I was there during that time.

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Speaker 2: So that was amazing music and song and just a

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Speaker 2: wonderful thing to put out there in terms of being

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Speaker 2: able to help people figure out how to deal with

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Speaker 2: all of this stuff. It's just it was out. It

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Speaker 2: was an unbelievable time.

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Speaker 1: It was an unbelievable time, and what I was doing

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Speaker 1: and I didn't know I was doing, and it was

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Speaker 1: trying to help me deal with it. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but don't they always say a lot of times

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Speaker 2: when you try to figure stuff out for yourself, you

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Speaker 2: don't even realize that it's going to resonate with so

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Speaker 2: many people, Which leads me to my next question. You

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Speaker 2: had mentioned about Mercy now and people still come to

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Speaker 2: you and with tears in their eyes. It has such

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Speaker 2: a unique ability music to bring people together. How does

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Speaker 2: it make you feel when you see that impact on

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Speaker 2: your audience while you're performing, or even after when they

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Speaker 2: come to you after. How does that make you feel?

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Speaker 1: I feel grateful, I feel deeply connected to purpose. I

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Speaker 1: feel as though I'm one of the lucky ones that

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Speaker 1: figured out. It took a while. I didn't figure it

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Speaker 1: out first first off, right out of the shoot, but

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Speaker 1: I figured out what to do with my life that

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Speaker 1: I was put here to do and I'm doing it.

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Speaker 1: And it's a real gift to know what to do

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Speaker 1: with your life and how to do it and then

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Speaker 1: to do it. That really makes me feel, I guess grateful. Overall.

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Speaker 1: The overarching experience of my songs resonating with listeners in

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Speaker 1: me is gratitude, because it took a lot of courage

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Speaker 1: to walk away from my restaurants at forty years old

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Speaker 1: and become a songwriter. Took a lot of courage for

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Speaker 1: me to say, you know what, I did that, and

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Speaker 1: now I'm going to do this and it may or

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Speaker 1: may not work, but I'm going to try, and I've

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Speaker 1: got to try. I don't want to be on my

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Speaker 1: deathbed going I wish I'd tried. So I gave it

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Speaker 1: my all and somehow I crossed the threshold somewhere over

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Speaker 1: the first you know, four or five six records that

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Speaker 1: gave me this sense that I get to do this

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Speaker 1: as long as I want to, that they're not going

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Speaker 1: to take it away from me. That it's working. And

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Speaker 1: the goal was not to be a star, but the

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Speaker 1: goal is to be able to support and sustain myself

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Speaker 1: by writing songs, and that has worked out to be true.

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Speaker 1: I manifested that and I don't need more. I have enough.

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Speaker 1: I'm grateful for that too. I'm not always grabbing for more.

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Speaker 1: I'm really really happy with where it's taken me and

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Speaker 1: what I do well.

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Speaker 2: We are so happy for you and grateful that you

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Speaker 2: joined us today to share your story about music and

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Speaker 2: how it's impacted your life. And thank you for your

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Speaker 2: selflessness of sharing your music with the world and helping

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Speaker 2: during their time as well. You don't mention it enough,

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Speaker 2: but you do make a big difference for a lot

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Speaker 2: of people, and you're very humble about it. And thank

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Speaker 2: you so much for coming on. Music saved me, Mary,

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Speaker 2: and good luck with everything you're doing in the future,

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Speaker 2: and I hope our paths cross again.

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Speaker 1: Hi, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.