Inside of me, it was like my soul and what I had to do to feed my family was always split. I was writing lyrics while I was supposed to be working. I'd look up, and there's my supervisor.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I started writing lyrics out of desperation. I was broke and wondering where my next job, my next meal was coming from, although I had had several successful revue songs on Broadway.
I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs.
Growing up in Memphis and listening to all kinds of music and dreaming... So that was one of the first times I wrote a complete song and set it to music and the whole bit. From then on, I was busy with it.
In the midst of hardship, it was the music that restored my soul.
One way and another I was having a ball - playing gigs, jamming and listening to fine musicians. Then came a crisis at home. My stepfather fell sick, and it meant I had to support the family.
Everything I was feeling, all the hurt and the pain and the emotion I was going through, I put into my music.
I couldn't live on the singing at first, so I worked as a cleaner, in a launderette, in a garage, face painting and doing the windows of shops at Christmas, 'cause I had been to art college.
I remember sitting on a bench in New York and sobbing and realising that my ambition to be a singer was making me selfish - I was a mother with two children, and I needed a backup plan.
Then I decided I couldn't just crawl in the corner and die, so I started putting pen to paper and wrote some songs. I had no idea what for or who I was going to work with. I tried to find my way and direction.
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
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