{"id":18873,"date":"2022-09-06T18:58:30","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T22:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sothebysrealty.ca\/insightblog\/en\/?p=18873"},"modified":"2022-09-23T09:49:02","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T13:49:02","slug":"being-martha-wainwright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sothebysrealty.ca\/insightblog\/en\/2022\/09\/06\/being-martha-wainwright\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Martha Wainwright: How She Takes a Page from Her Own Life Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Out of the one-liners in her memoir, <em>Stories I Might Regret Telling You<\/em>, the Canadian-American singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright claims that one particular self-observation speaks volumes: \u201cI\u2019m less Sophia Loren and more Anna Magnani.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know it\u2019s ridiculous to pair myself up with one of the greatest dramatic actresses in history,\u201d Wainwright says, via Zoom, laughing while trying to explain the context of her text message. She\u2019s speaking from the living room of her home in Montr\u00e9al \u2014 a rambling Victorian house bought some 25 years ago by her late mother, Anna McGarrigle (of the famed sister folk duo Kate &amp; Anna McGarrigle). It\u2019s the birthplace of hundreds of songs written by her and her famous family, which includes her Aunt Anna, her brother, Rufus, and her father, Loudon Wainwright III. It is also where she first saw, on TV, Anna Magnani\u2019s rage theatrics, subtitles and all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn movies she was in, like L\u2019Amore, I see myself as very Magnani-like, the way she openly and outwardly shows her franticism and intensity,\u201d Wainwright says. \u201cShe had this reckless abandon to her&#8230;. [She] didn\u2019t try to be in control of her emotions or her art. She just let it be wild. I never saw myself as Sophia Loren but [as] Anna Magnani, [who], while still beautiful, isn\u2019t about being an ideal feminine archetype of sexuality. And neither am I.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Referencing her connection to the Italian actress isn\u2019t that far off. Magnani, like Wainwright, never formally studied her craft. The actress was first a singer, and dubbed, in her salad days, the Edith Piaf of Italy, learning how to emote by performing heartbreaking, dark-humoured Roman folk songs \u00e0 la Piaf. Wainwright herself recorded a brilliant collection of Piaf songs in 2009 on her all-French album, Sans fusils, ni souliers, \u00e0 Paris: Martha Wainwright\u2019s Piaf Record. Also of note is how Wainwright\u2019s six-album, 25-years-plus career has garnered critical praise, same as Magnani\u2019s movie scenes, with reviews like \u201cunbridled\u201d (<em>The New York Times<\/em>), \u201cHerculean\u201d (<em>Toronto<\/em> <em>Star<\/em>), \u201cself-empowered\u201d (Pitchfork) and \u201cahead of her time\u201d (<em>The Guardian<\/em>). The observation from <em>The Guardian<\/em> can easily be applied to Wainwright\u2019s songs, such as \u201cBMFA.\u201d Embraced more than a decade after it was recorded, \u201cBMFA\u201d was subsequently rediscovered when it was included in the soundtracks of HBO\u2019s Emmy-winning series <em>Big Little Lies<\/em> and Netflix\u2019s <em>Orange Is the New Black<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This late-to-be-embraced phenomenon is something Wainwright has since grown accustomed to, although, as her book chronicles in detail, it tormented her for years. \u201cI had to come to terms with the fact that some of my songs are sleepers,\u201d she admits. Then, there are those \u201cprediction songs,\u201d she says. \u201cSome are like tarot cards\u2026 because they predict what is going to happen to me before it even happens.\u201d Wainwright\u2019s memoir clarifies which songs offer clues on how her discography foreshadows her biography. One such song is \u201cFar Away,\u201d which Wainwright released in 2005 and which, most recently, she has been regularly revisiting on the stage. The lyrics&nbsp; \u2014 \u201cI have no children\/I have no husband\/I have no reason\/To be alive\/Oh, give me one&#8230; \u2014 foretold a child custody battle after the dissolution of her marriage to Brad Albetta, her former bassist and the father of her sons, Francis and Arcangelo. (They now have joint custody of the children.) \u201cThere are songs on all my past records that talked about my difficult marriage, so that you could kind of see what was going to happen before it happened,\u201d Wainwright says. \u201cThe songs got more and more telling of the difficulty. It got so that the lines of art imitating life and life imitating art were completely blurred.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"image_block_single\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sothebysrealty.ca\/insightblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/martha-wainwright-insight-the-art-of-living-sothebys-international-realty-canada-1.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In contrast, the lead single and title track of her most recent album, Love Will Be Reborn, was a sonic crystal ball. It was written during a dark time in her life, while the divorce litigation was going on, and yet, Wainwright\u2019s optimism was apparent, as the song\u2019s title suggests. \u201cThe inner person in me knew that deep down, things were going to get better and a new love would show up, and it did. I ended up writing a love song for the second half of my life and then living it.\u201dSometime after her divorce was finalized, Wainwright met her current partner, Nicolas Deslis. During the height of the pandemic, the two worked closely together to keep Ursa open \u2014 Wainwright\u2019s hybrid caf\u00e9\/ cabaret\/music venue in Montr\u00e9al\u2019s Mile End neighbourhood. All the while, she was also leading rooftop singalongs \u2014 live-streamed local events dedicated to health-care workers. It was during one of these spontaneous concerts that Wainwright rendered a gripping version of \u201cMessage to Michael\u201d (renamed \u201cMessage to Martha\u201d), which was popularized by Dionne Warwick.The performance echoed Wainwright\u2019s own associations with other empathic, gifted women who have the power to see and sing into the future. And it can be traced to the voices that filled the halls of the house where she grew up and where she still lives. Just like operatic soothsayers Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi and rock and folk godmothers Patti Smith and Emmylou Harris, Wainwright made career choices that have entrenched her as an iconoclast whose art defines her life and vice versa. And much like those who have paved the road before her, Wainwright\u2019s life story will need to be adapted for the silver screen. \u201cA film is definitely in the cards,\u201d she says. \u201cIn my dream scenario, Gaby Hoffmann and Maggie Gyllenhaal can play me at different stages of my life. I can play my mother, and Rufus can be played by that beautiful actor who played [drummer] Ruben Stone,\u201d she continues, referring to Riz Ahmed, who starred in the Oscar-winning film <em>Sound of Metal<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Cinematic ambitions aside, Wainwright also plans on touring extensively. She\u2019s heading to Europe in the fall, then back to North America to do special performances anchored on the chapters in her memoir, singing her songs, as well as her mom\u2019s songs and some of her brother\u2019s and father\u2019s songs. \u201cThere\u2019s still so much to say with music and on-page, but I\u2019m not in a rush, so I think I\u2019m taking 2023 off to write,\u201d Wainwright muses, noting too that she\u2019s working on a new book \u2014 fiction this time. \u201cI\u2019m sharing the last 45 years of my life with everyone, so whatever comes next will need to be as meaningful.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><span class=\"s1\">By Elio Iannacci \u2013&nbsp; *This article originally appeared in <span class=\"s2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sothebysrealty.ca\/insightblog\/en\/?p=18858\">INSIGHT: The Art of Living | Fall 2022<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/em><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Out of the one-liners in her memoir, Stories I Might Regret Telling You, the Canadian-American singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright claims that one particular self-observation speaks volumes: \u201cI\u2019m less Sophia Loren and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":18874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[394],"tags":[1567,1594],"class_list":["post-18873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insight-magazine","tag-celebrity","tag-insight-magazine-fall-2022"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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