TV 2006-05-03 Hollywood CA
| TV Info
| |
| Date | Wednesday, May 3, 2006 |
|---|---|
| City | Hollywood, CA |
| Venue | KCET Studios |
| Event | The Tavis Smiley Show |
| Musicians | Jewel |
| Other | Long interview followed by a performance promoting Goodbye Alice in Wonderland. Broadcast on PBS. |
Setlist
- Interview
- Again and Again
Transcript
Tavis: I am pleased to welcome Jewel to this program. What a great name. The multi-platinum singer-songwriter is out this week with her first CD in three years. About time, Jewel. The disk is called "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland." In just a moment, she'll perform one of the songs from the disc. We look forward to that. In the meantime, here now is some of the video for the single "Again And Again."
Tavis: Jewel, three years. What you been doing?
Jewel: (Laugh) Actually kind of toured into ‘05. But I sort of decided several years ago that I wanted to try and have a life I could sustain. I try and take a lot of time to enjoy myself, and have stuff to write about in the meantime and not just work and do records.
Tavis: Yeah. Did that become more difficult after the phenomenal success of the project three years ago?
Jewel: It was such a surreal experience, going from living in a car to becoming as successful as I was. I didn't know how to handle it. I think the main thing was there were so many opportunities that I was given that you just feel so fortunate to be given that you can't turn them down. And after a while, I was working so much I wasn't even happy being successful because I was so busy all the time.
And I didn't want to, like, it sounds a bit morbid, but I didn't want to end up on my deathbed and look back on my life and feel like all I had was a record career. I really started to then take time and figure out what else made me happy.
Tavis: I wonder whether or not, to that very point, has anything to do with the fact that you have chosen on this project, when you didn't have to, to be so autobiographical again.
Jewel: Yeah, I think just the phase, I was turning 31 when I was making this record, and that sort of was causing me to look back at my life and look forward at where I want to go. And yeah, there's a lot of reflection in the music, and it's certainly pretty autobiographical.
Tavis: So I'm cracking up. You look back at 30. (Laughs) At my life, looking back at 30 trying to figure out what I want to do. So what does one see? What does Jewel see when Jewel looks back at 30 years of living? What did you see in the rear-view mirror?
Jewel: It's been a weird ride. I went from living on a homestead in Alaska, my family were immigrants that came over from Switzerland and homesteaded before Alaska was a state. So I was raised milking our own cows. We butchered our own meat. We had our own fish, we canned our own salmon, we made our own jam, we made our own butter. I grew up really rustically, with an outhouse and no electricity and a coal stove.
And to go from that to this, it's really been a bizarre ride. And it's interesting, 'cause the record actually kind of deals with the topic of, and the reason I titled it "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland" is 'cause it deals with the fairy tales that we get told as children. The fairy tales we end up kind of telling ourselves, and a willingness to find the truth and let go of those sort of lies that we tell ourselves.
Tavis: This is an unfair question. But I'm working on a project now, book project myself, where I'm being challenged to deal with those same kinds of realities. What you were told as a child, and what you came to understand in terms of standing in your own truth as you grew older. So of all the things that you were told in this Alice in Wonderland experience, what's, like, the one thing that you found absolutely to be the antithesis of what you were taught as you grew older?
So this could not have been further from the truth, this thing I was told up in Alaska, in this car. What's that one thing? I know there's more than one, but is there one in particular that comes to mind?
Jewel: I think somewhere along the line, I thought that love should be easy. I think...
Tavis: That love should be easy.
Jewel: That love should be easy. I think, I guess from reading books and seeing movies, you have some sort of fantasy that love should be easy. And I don't think it should, necessarily. I think that can really cause a dissatisfaction in you, because everything's work. No matter what. Songwriting's work. But you get a song out of it, so it's worth it. I don't know why suddenly you'd expect love to be just be hassle-free. But it creates, like, a dissatisfaction in you where you suddenly feel dissatisfied, 'cause you keep looking for this perfect love that's always easy.
And I think you can find poetry. I think you can find romance in the struggle within love, and I think that's something that's helped me a lot, was realizing why should why should I expect this to be any different than anything else in life. Everything takes work. And to bring your creativity to it and find romance within that struggle. And then I became very satisfied. It's a different experience.
Tavis: Yeah, if I had a dime for every time I've said to myself wow, I wish love were easy, (laughs) I'd be independently wealthy. So I think we all come into the understanding as we grow older that that ain't how it works, to your point. I'm curious as to whether or not you think, and I don't know how to view this, which is why I'm asking you, duh.
When you grow up, as you said earlier, with your own food and all the things that you laid out that you did, that you and your family did for yourselves, and now you don't have to do that anymore, do you look back on that experience and say that life was simpler then or easier then? Much more, I could navigate it better then? Or does the success bring with it simplicity or complication? Does that make sense? Is life more complicated for you now, or simpler now?
Jewel: It's both, actually.
Tavis: It's both. See?
Jewel: It's funny. My childhood was a strange childhood. There was a lot of emotional turbulence growing up, divorced family and those kind of things that go on. But at the same time, I think the things it taught me, like hard work, I'm very disciplined. I wasn't raised around pop culture, so I wasn't really raised looking in mirrors thinking about certain kind of things that you might be raised with if you were here in the lower 48.
And I think that helped me. I think it made me the songwriter that I am. I think being raised outdoors in the solitude made me an avid reader. I think that's really benefited me a lot. So there's things that really were great and much simpler. But the struggle was never easy. That was always hard. And whoever says money doesn't help, they're wrong. Money really helps. (Laughs) They're lying.
It doesn't solve all your problems, but I had sick kidneys, and I couldn't afford medication. Doctors would turn me away from their offices; emergency rooms would turn me away 'cause I had no insurance. I had to stand in, like, Welfare lines. Just, it's hard. It was hard struggling, living hand to mouth like that. And money has made my life so much simpler on that level.
I'm still giddy every day about it. And I can't believe I can get on a flight whenever I want, and go to the movies whenever I want. But it's the kind of simple things that tickle me, oddly enough. I've just never been - I don't care how much stuff I have. I like land, so I like having a nice ranch in Texas. So it's weird. It's complicated in some ways, and more simple in others.
Tavis: You've been called, I don't know if you've heard the phrase, old soul. Do you know this phrase?
Jewel: (laughs) I've heard it.
Tavis: You've been called an old soul before? I've been called that. Have you been called that before?
Jewel: Probably.
Tavis: Yeah. I ask that only because you're still young, but you have this old soul spirit. This old soul feel. That is to say that you are much more experienced, more mature than the years would belie, because of these experiences. So I kind of see you, like, as an old soul. And I think that's good, though, because it allows you to be in a place where you disciplined, to your point, enough, and courageous enough, quite frankly, to be expressive in your music.
And so I assume, then, that you don't ever want to shy away from being so expressive. Might that change somewhere down the road? That you don't want to tell all your business all the time?
Jewel: Well, I'm actually able to be quite cryptic in my writing. I grew up reading. My favorite authors were quite honest in their writing. They just never used their art to make themselves seemed more perfect than they were.
Tavis: Authors like?
Jewel: Bukowski, Anias Nin, Pablo Neruda. You would see their frailties as well as their tendencies toward heroic nature, maybe. So I liked that. I liked reading Bukowski, and I felt like okay, I'm not a freak. I was an eight year old, so I had nothing in common with Bukowski, (laughs) but it still made feel like there were other humans out there living real lives, and I appreciated that.
And I never wanted to lie in my writing to make myself seem more perfect or more whatever, glamorous than I really was. And that's a commitment I've kept to myself. The other reason I do it is 'cause we lie all the time. We lie to ourselves, we lie to the people we're with. We're always trying to make ourselves seem better than we are. And it's just natural. It's not bad about us. I don't think it's a malicious thing.
But I realized when I was a kid, I was, like, I might not ever be able to keep track of myself. Like, I should tell the truth somewhere. So it just kind of became like, just helped me to find north. I just would tell the truth, at least there. Even if I thought nobody would read it. And there's plenty nobody ever gets to read or see. So I'm still quite - I've never told or betrayed a loyalty or something like that in my writing.
Tavis: Speaking of truth, here's my truth. I know when to get out of a conversation. When Neruda comes up, it's too deep for me. When Pablo Neruda's name starts flying around, out of Jewel's mouth, it's time to get out of the conversation. So let me make room now for a special acoustic performance from Jewel. Nice to have you on the program.
Jewel: Thanks for having me.
Tavis: We'll hear from Jewel in just a moment. Stay with us.
From her new CD "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland," here is Jewel performing "Again And Again." Enjoy. Good night from L.A., and keep the faith.
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