Sophie B. Hawkins Masters the Art of Staying Herself | The TSN Interview
Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Sophie B. Hawkins emerged in the early 1990s with a sound that was difficult to categorize and even harder to forget. Her platinum debut, Tongues and Tails, introduced the world to "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover," while its follow-up, Whaler, gave us "As I Lay Me Down." But those familiar recordings represent only a portion of a remarkably varied musical life.
A New Yorker whose musical education began with percussion, Sophie has spent more than three decades writing songs, making records, challenging the conventions of the music business, and fiercely protecting her creative independence.
And she's hardly finished. She's recently revisited Whaler with new acoustic recordings, is developing an original musical called Birds of New York, and is working on both a memoir and her tenth studio album.
There's a lot to discuss, including some of those early records, which have become rather desirable items among vinyl collectors.
Editor's note: This interview transcript has been edited for readability. Verbal fillers, repeated words, and false starts have been removed; the speakers' substantive answers and intended meaning have been preserved. Section headings are editorial additions.
Sophie B. Hawkins: Thank you so much. What a beautiful intro you gave me.
Evan: Well, you deserve it. When I look at everything you’re working on today, it strikes me that you’re in a particularly fertile creative period. You’re revisiting your earlier music while exploring new ways of telling stories. Does this feel like a new chapter in your creative life, or more like a continuation of the journey you’ve been on all along?
Sophie: I think it’s both. What it feels like now is that I’m not fighting against the voices in my mind that say, “Well, this happened, and what if you had done that?” I’m really moving forward without doubt and without shame.
Actually, doubt and shame are very good for creativity because they bring up a lot of questions. Then you search for healing, and you work, and people can really relate to it. But right now I’m using that. It’s almost like I’m going into the memoir like a scientist. It’s so much better than going in as this emotional person trying to make myself relevant. I’m going in and really trying to dig these holes, see what’s there, and fill them up with new perceptions.
That’s my work in general. I do get tired of sitting there and writing, even though the material is interesting. Talk about fertile: it has been a great journey, this life. But then I get tired of literally sitting there, and that’s when I start writing a song or painting. I’ve found it really healthy to be able to move around.
That’s something new for me. I used to have to finish one thing before I would do another. Now I’m not segregated, and that feels really good. I’m doing the show with the musical, and I’m also doing my songs from my New York career, and they’re going to be together.
Evan: It’s interesting that you use the word “shame.” Do you mean personal feelings, or your career? What are you referring to?
Sophie: Both. I don’t think I would have anything to write about if I didn’t have a lot of things that I felt I did wrong.
The song “Before I Walk on Fire” starts with “I lied, I stole in the name of fear, but I won’t be silent here.” I think I just realized something in talking to you. I think that’s what my art is: I won’t be silent here. This is a place where I’m talking to you, or writing a book or a song or painting or a musical. I refuse to lie to myself. I will not put on a mask or be someone that I think I could be to sell records.
On the other hand, that has also made me frustrated. Why did I have to put that song on the record when the record company wouldn’t support me? Then I go, “Well, because that’s who you are. That’s why some people love you and most people don’t know about you.” But I like the people who love me, and I love myself, so I’m going to keep going.
Evan: That’s part of the compromise of being an artist, particularly an artist at the level you’ve worked at. Have you had those discussions with younger musicians about what they should or shouldn’t compromise?
Sophie: That’s a great question, Evan. My very best friend, Lori Eastside, whom I call Yogi Bear, was playing me all these amazing songs. She was in the documentary The Cream Will Rise, and I wrote a song about her called “My Best Friend” on Timbre. I love Timbre, but that’s the one with the banjo, and I had to leave the record company to protect the banjo song.
I don’t think artists really have to compromise anymore by the nature of the business. They go into the business with this open market. They’re not needing a record company to sell them. I don’t think they think of compromising. They think, “I’m going to be myself, and I’m going to reach people who are looking for my type of thing.” We needed all these people to get our music out. Do you remember that?
Evan: I certainly remember that. It’s so different now. There were pros and cons to the old formula, and I’d like to hear about those because I know you had conflicts with the record business. That story is part of what brought you to where you are today.
Sophie: I’d love to get into it because I do think it’s relevant to how free artists can be. Every human who takes a stand for something might not reap the benefits, but other people after them do. Parents know that, too. We might have suffered our mistakes, but then we can give the repairs we’ve made to our children. They’re starting with a leg up or a cleaner slate as humans, hopefully.
My daughter, who’s eleven, is listening to Stevie Wonder, the Ronettes doing a Christmas song, and Michael Jackson when he was six years old, or however old he was. She’s listening to stuff that sounds amazing, where every song was picked and refined, the musicians were picked and refined, and the artists had this incredible innate talent but were refined and refined.
You could not make these records today because all those people doing the refining, the heads of labels, weren’t stupid. They might have been a lot of other things, but they were coming from a background of incredible music history. A lot of their families came from other places and brought all these cultures together in America. They were taking this person and saying, “You’re going to represent us. You’re going to represent all of us who have made Motown.” Even Stevie Wonder’s name wasn’t Stevie Wonder. Now he would not change his name.
The albums were so thought out. Hall and Oates, everybody. Now, in a great way, they’re so raw and just put out. But when I listen to those older records, I’m aghast at the care that went into putting them out, the talent, and what it took to make a hit record.
I’m always reminded how lucky I am that, of the millions of people who wanted a hit record, I got the chance to put “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” out. And believe me, they said no: no third verse, you’re not going to say “making love to her,” you’re not going to use Omar Hakim and Mark Egan because those are jazz drums. It was no all the time. I was like, “Bring it on. We’re going to do all of this.” It was exciting to me and to the producers I worked with.
I worked hand in hand with those producers. If I did “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” today, it would be like a demo. It wouldn’t be nearly as big and bestial as it was. It wouldn’t be as good, actually.
Evan: We blasted it here in the store before I got on with you. You originally recorded those songs from your first album on an eight-track reel-to-reel in the East Village, eventually bringing them to Electric Lady with the musicians you mentioned. What do you remember about those early sessions? How did you develop such a distinctive sound, and what survived on the album from those homemade recordings?
Sophie: I love talking about it. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was so tired. I had waitressed all night. I came home and plunked my hands on the piano. I was playing a D and singing a D, and suddenly this hand went to a D over G. I said, “That’s what I’m looking for.” It was a mistake. I knew I had chills. I said, “This is the song I’ve been waiting for.”
Even at that time, my thing was, if I could only write one hit song, one song that means everything. I didn’t have further goals after that one song. When that happened, I said, “This is it.” But then I was scared. I had a verse, and how was I going to follow up this beautiful verse? It took about two weeks to get it where I wanted it to go.
I have all the original lyrics in my journal from that night, and I have all the original recordings. I have the eight-track cassette, what we dumped onto cassette in those days. I didn’t record the piano except in the background. I took it to my Juno-60 and recorded the chords over this drum loop I had done with frying pans, my djembe drum, and kick drum. All that stuff was real. I was singing the melody from verse to chorus, but the chorus was the low melody. When you listen and hear that low octave, that was the lead. I never did that high octave except for a little ghost in the background.
When it came time to make the record, Ralph said, “That ghost voice in the background, that should be the lead.” I said, “I can’t sing that high. I can only get high in my head voice.” He said, “Just try it.” So I tried it, and I said, “Wow, that’s powerful.” That’s what I mean about working with people. It would have been a very mellow, sexy demo with all these low voices, but he forced me to push my luck.
All the horns and everything were there on that first demo. People have encouraged me to put it out, but I don’t want to do that for a long time. I don’t know why.
Evan: I’ll speculate. Are you afraid of how the two versions might live together, or that the demo might take away from the version everybody knows? People love hearing demos nowadays. Why wouldn’t you want to release it?
Sophie: Here’s the thing, Evan. I put out my last record, Free Myself, and it feels like nobody heard it. I don’t want to put out something that means so much to me. That first demo created my whole life. I support my children on the royalties. If people don’t listen to it, I’ll feel maybe ashamed. How could I expose that part of me and nobody cares? How stupid am I?
I think that’s the reason. My son says, “You should sell your paintings.” I say no, I don’t ever want to sell them. It’s the same reason. They’re so close to me. If you expose that level and nobody really wants to buy them, it’s awful.
Evan: I’m thinking of the word “precious.” It’s precious to you. It’s sacred to you, and you don’t want to dump it out there. Maybe in our society we have a tendency to dump everything out there nowadays.
Sophie: I’ve done enough overexposing. Luckily, it hasn’t lasted. What’s stood the test of time seems to be my integrity rather than the stupid things I did. But that is the worst feeling in the world when you overexpose and can’t take it back.
Evan: I own a record store, and this is where we’re conducting the interview today. Something interesting has happened to your early albums. Original vinyl copies of Tongues and Tails run around $50 on the used market, and Whaler can command around $165. Were you aware those records have become so collectible?
Sophie: No, I love that! I hope everyone who buys one gets to have me sign it when I come to their town on tour. That’s so special to me.
And you know what’s interesting? Apparently, “As I Lay Me Down” is the longest-running hit single on AC radio. People think “Damn” is more famous, but “As I Lay Me Down” is actually played more. That record, I think, sold better than the first record.
Evan: One reason those records are so valuable is that I don’t believe either has been reissued on vinyl since its original release. Is a reissue something you’ve discussed?
Sophie: My right-hand person, Wally, has talked about it. I think I’ve already served Sony notice that I get the full masters back. When I left Sony Music, they gave me only the masters for the record that was in contention, Timbre. Apparently, very soon I get the masters back.
They never like to give artists the masters back, even though they have to, so one of the things they try to do is negotiate, I’ve heard. That would be a great negotiating point: they give me a much better deal and release the vinyl masters. That might also be a place where the demos should be offered. Then we get into all those emotional issues. But yes, I want them to be released.
Evan: A second disc of demos. A two-disc set. Look, I’m putting it together!
Sophie: You’re right, Evan. Maybe I shouldn’t negotiate with Sony. I should get the masters back and pick them myself, with all the original photos nobody ever saw from those sessions. I should do a double album with the demos, and the story could be in there, too: the written story from my memoir.
I was working at coat check when Marc Cohn, you know, “Walking in Memphis,” said something to me. Do you know this story?
Evan: No, but I’ve interviewed Marc Cohn in the past.
Sophie: He might not remember this, but he should. I was at coat check, and he was there with his then-fiancée, Jennifer. He came in every night to the theater restaurant in Manhattan. He would monkey around a little to get my attention. I was very young and beautiful then, and I didn’t know I was, but I was reading War and Peace. To get my attention, he had to do a lot.
Finally, he was changing a light bulb right above me while waiting for his fiancée. He asked me something like, “How’s the book?” Then he said, “You have a beautiful speaking voice. I bet you’re a great singer.” I said, “I’m a terrible singer, but I do have a hundred songs.”
I gave him the demo that had every song from Tongues and Tails and then some. I said, “These are my songs.” At the time, he was a jingle singer, and maybe he was interested because I had a good song on there. Then he never listened to it. He admitted that. He left it on the desk of the demo studio JSM, John Silverman Music.
Somebody named Ralph, a keyboard player, came out of a session one day and grabbed the demo. My name and phone number were on it. He listened to it on his Walkman, called me, and said, “You have to make a record, and I’ll help you.”
Of course I didn’t trust him, so I went to his house in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, with a knife in my pocket, literally my mother’s kitchen knife. He turned out to be great. He shopped me to seven labels, and then I had seven labels after me. But it was many, many years of working to get to that point.
Evan: Are you sure you didn’t use the knife to coerce him into helping you release the album?
Sophie: No! But you know what he did do? I always wore the same clothes as I do now. He said, “You can’t go into record labels like that,” and he gave me his shirts from his tours, because he was a touring musician, to wear. Isn’t that funny?
Marc Cohn never really has any reaction when I tell him that. It’s amazing. He was part and parcel of me becoming Sophie B. Hawkins in the world.
Evan: When you made Whaler, you were coming off a tremendously successful debut and working with Stephen Lipson. Yet the record sounds very different from Tongues and Tails. What were you exploring musically? How did your approach to arranging, recording, and production evolve between those two albums?
Sophie: I remember exactly what happened. First, I wanted to work with Rick Chertoff and Ralph Schuckett again. They did the first record with me, and Don Ienner, who was the head of Sony under Tommy Mottola, said, “Over my dead body.” I think he thought we overspent on the first record. Of course I had nothing to do with that. That was all the producers, and he didn’t want it to be the same crew.
He did say, “Write another ‘Damn,’” which I would never be able to do because I’d have to live another day. You can’t live these things twice.
I had all new songs and was living in my new apartment on Christopher Street. I had earned that. I had written these new, really happy songs like “Mr. Tugboat Hello,” and I had “As I Lay Me Down.” It was a lighter, brighter album, like Whaler is, and I didn’t know how to do it in the same way I did Tongues and Tails.
Then Annie Lennox had this hit, “Why.” She had left Dave Stewart as a creative partner and worked with Stephen Lipson. I thought “Why” was such a beautiful record. I met with a bunch of producers, and then I met Stephen Lipson. He agreed to do it very simply. I shipped my whole little demo studio to London, put it in his big studio, and we built around my home demos.
Yes, it was more techno, and I was worried about that. It was so much more pop. At the time, I thought it was exciting to be able to make pop because I had never been able to do that. It was so rough and ragged before, and I didn’t know how beautiful that was. I was moving on to something else, thinking, “This will be more beautiful.”
Then I was having dinner with David Bowie and Iman. I know this is dropping names, but it’s true. David Bowie said, “Why are you working with Stephen Lipson?” In that moment I thought this might be a bad choice.
Evan: He said, “Why are you?” Not “Why aren’t you?”
Sophie: “Why are you?” He was very dry. I interpreted it as, “Why would you work with Stephen Lipson?” I told him the truth: because Annie Lennox’s “Why” was so beautiful and emotional.
Whaler hadn’t been released, and I don’t think it had even been approved yet. It was the first moment when I thought, “Oh my God, am I going down the wrong road?” But it turned out to be a good road because “As I Lay Me Down” saved my career.
Evan: Did David Bowie gaslight you at dinner?
Sophie: You could probably use that word. He was so withheld. I wasn’t kowtowing to him. I was sitting up straight and answering the questions. But in the back of my mind I was thinking, “Uh-oh.”
Evan: What was the subtext? And where did you go to dinner? What did you have?
Sophie: It was an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles. I know what I dressed as: Judy Garland, with black dance pants and a white collared shirt with rolled-up sleeves. I had my hair up. I was especially trying to be Judy Garland at that dinner. I don’t know why, but that was me. He was in a suit, and Iman is beyond elegant and beautiful. It was a little intimidating.
Evan: Maybe this leads to your disagreement with Columbia over “Lose Your Way,” which became an important chapter in your career. Looking back, what were you fighting to preserve in that recording? Once you became an independent artist, did having complete control change the way you made records?
Sophie: There are roots to that story. “As I Lay Me Down” saved my career. After the first album, they sent me to Europe and said, “America doesn’t get you.” They thought Tongues and Tails hadn’t sold enough records, that “Damn” hadn’t been a big enough hit for long enough, and they had overspent. They thought maybe I was a one-hit wonder because they couldn’t get “California Here I Come,” “I Want You,” or another song off that record to be a single. They sent me to Europe.
Then I made Whaler very succinctly, cleanly, and smartly. Europe released Whaler and was excited to have the chance to prove themselves. They toured me for two years. They had five hits, but America was still ignoring me. Then Europe said to Sony America, “You’re missing something. ‘As I Lay Me Down’ is really a big hit.” Don turned around and thought, “Okay, I’ll give it a try.” It saved my career. They said it saved his career, too.
I had already experienced being totally thrown away. I didn’t have this feeling of safety with Sony America.
Then it came time to make the third record, Timbre. Every demo I made, from “I Walk Alone” and “No Connection” to “Lose Your Way,” they hated. They had nothing good to say about them, and I thought they were good. I thought, “This is really good songwriting. Yes, they could be produced better.”
Women were playing guitars now. They were real artists and were being portrayed as real artists. I had to say to Sony, “I can’t do a video with no instruments anymore. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. Stop hiding that. Put me forward as the musician I am.” They didn’t want to. It was constant tension.
When they heard “Lose Your Way,” they finally said, “This is your biggest hit.” They meant it, the lyrics and the melody. They wanted to put it on Dawson’s Creek, which they did, but they said, “You’ve got to lose the banjo.”
I said, “No. This is Sophie B. Hawkins. I wrote it on the banjo, and I’m going to go on every show with my banjo. This is the musician I am. I taught myself the banjo. I wrote this song on the banjo, and you’re not going to make me take it off.”
I never played piano on “Damn” in the videos. They didn’t encourage it; they discouraged it. Now I was sticking up for myself. But more than that, I said the banjo is the symbol of freedom in America. It’s the first instrument ever invented in this country, maybe the only one, by enslaved Africans. They weren’t free, but this instrument was a voice of their freedom.
I said, “This is my freedom.” And the lyric, “My freedom, I know I’ll never let you go,” is my music, my art. It’s also maybe a person I was singing to at the time, but it’s really about me. I was fighting for my actual soul.
They said, “If you just take off the banjo, this is your biggest hit.” And I literally said to Tommy Mottola, “When I’m ninety years old and sitting on my front porch, I want to know what I made, not what you made of me.”
Evan: How cool would it be to have a pop star today go on a talk show with a banjo and play the hit on banjo? It would be perfectly twenty-first century.
Sophie: It would. That’s the thing we said at the beginning: we take a lot of flak for things and don’t see the rewards. We may be sidelined for it, but the next generation gets the benefit.
I feel good about that because I love artists and young artists, and because I have children. My daughter plays violin, and I said to her, “When you’re eighteen, you can throw your violin in the river. Of course I’ll jump in after it. I don’t care. But give yourself the chance to have one thing.” She’s so good at it. She’s a natural. She doesn’t know it, doesn’t care, doesn’t want to practice. But that’s the gift of me being wiser.
Evan: You used a word before when talking about Sony: “safety.” You didn’t feel safe. Can feeling on edge inspire good music or push an artist to make something better? Or can feeling too safe mean there’s no challenge? What do you think?
Sophie: It’s a great question because I often say there are stages in making even one piece of art where you must feel safe, and stages where you must feel really insecure and on edge.
My home now is a place where I feel really safe with my children. My children are safe emotionally, to erupt, to throw things, to be cuddly, to be who they are, and for me to be who I am. That’s where safety comes in handy.
Having a place where you can create, even if you’re safe within yourself, means saying, “I’m going to do this no matter how I feel. I’m going to see it through.” You’re not running from yourself.
When I made Tongues and Tails, I felt safe in that studio. I could explore different voices, do different backgrounds, play all these instruments. I felt like a child in a playground, climbing, swinging, going mad, skinning my knee, but basically safe.
Sony made me feel unsafe in a way that isn’t good, where you feel they’re going to tear you apart and bury you. That kind of unsafe was death.
Evan: Sometimes creative works are made out of these crazy situations.
Sophie: Performance-wise, I think it’s good to feel unsafe. When I did the Dylan show and sang “I Want You,” I felt safe onstage. I loved G. E. Smith, Duck Dunn, everybody in that band. They made me feel safe. The audience made me feel safe. I love being onstage.
But the minute I start the song, I feel terrified and unsafe. I’m not doing this well. This song is too good to mess up. Everyone’s going to think it’s terrible. I sing out of key. That’s totally unsafe, but I keep going.
I didn’t listen to that performance for forty years because I thought it was bad. But guess what? It’s great. Wally made me listen to it, and I said, “Why didn’t I ever hear this?” For forty years, I felt like I had totally messed up.
Evan: I’m glad you bring that song up. I was listening to the album the other day and reflecting on “I Want You.” How did you choose the song, and how did you arrive at that arrangement? What was the conversation with the production crew about doing a Dylan song?
Sophie: We were in the studio making Tongues and Tails, and Rick Chertoff came in and said, “I heard this guy playing ‘I Want You.’ He was busking on the street corner, and he sounded terrible, but you’d sing that song great.”
I grew up with Dylan. He was my father’s favorite artist. I grew up listening to all his records, and I thought, “I can’t do that. There’s no way.” I told Rick, “If I’m going to do it, I’m going to have to completely change it.”
I went home and changed all the chords and made a different bridge. I kept all the lyrics the same but changed so much about it. I saw myself standing on a street corner in Washington Square, singing up to a window with my doo-wop band, my doo-wop singers. That was my vision. I made those fifties chords, and you can hear it now that I’ve told you what I was doing.
I loved it. I worshipped that version of the song, to be honest with you. Then Dylan’s manager told me on a plane that Bob Dylan loved the record. I was shocked and didn’t know whether to believe it.
Then I did the Dylan show, and Sony left me off the record. Did you know that?
Evan: No. You performed at the Dylan show, and you weren’t on the record? I didn’t know that story.
Sophie: People would stop me on the street and ask, “Why weren’t you on the record?” I’d say, “I don’t know. Sony didn’t like my version.” Then it got around that Dylan didn’t like my version.
Evan: So you heard he liked it, then heard he didn’t?
Sophie: I heard he liked my record, but that he didn’t like my performance.
Guess what? Wally found a performance of Dylan doing “I Want You” two years after the Madison Square Garden concert. And guess whose version he did? My version. You’ve got to hear it. He does the chords, my chords. It’s my arrangement. He does my version of his song. So that means he did like it.
Evan: That is wild. Have you ever talked to him or received any other feedback about how he felt?
Sophie: No. I have no other feedback. I met him at the Dylan concert for one second. I got to shake his hand.
Evan: We’ve talked a lot about the past. Tell me about Birds of New York. You’re writing the book, music, and lyrics. How is writing for a theatrical character different from writing songs drawn from your own experiences? Has it changed how you think about storytelling?
Sophie: It’s enhanced it. I used to write from the point of view of me. That’s what the singer-songwriter generally does. But now I have Billie, Celeste, Morley, Ellen, and even Lovey Darling. I’m writing songs from different points of view.
They’re struggling with one another in this play, in this apartment. They’re having dramatic, intense, deep conflicts about family history, and they’re trying to resolve them. They’re going through hell. Writing songs from each character’s point of view has been a challenge, and it’s been wonderful.
When I feel I’ve nailed it, I go, “Hallelujah!” The only time I really feel I’ve nailed it is when I hear another actor playing that part sing it. Then I go, “Yes.” There are plenty of times when I feel I didn’t get it, and I’ll go back to the drawing board.
There’s a song called “Hello, My Name Is Morley” that the mother sings at an AA meeting, and she lets it all out. When I wrote it, I thought, “This is too rock. This is not Broadway enough.” I put it away. Now, when she sings it onstage, and she’s going to sing it at Joe’s Pub, Liz Larsen, who’s a phenomenal actress, she sings that song like you can’t even believe.
Morley is the star of the show. She’s based on my mother. What an incredible character: the darkest dark and the lightest light. It brings it all together in that song. There are moments when I feel, “Wow, I’ve really learned how to do this.”
Evan: What’s the plan for the Joe’s Pub show? What can listeners expect if they come?
Sophie: The first two-thirds is my experience growing up in New York, with songs and the stories behind the songs people know and love: “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover,” “As I Lay Me Down,” “Before I Walk on Fire,” “I Want You.” The actual moments, relationships, and experiences that created those songs. How did lyrics like those in “Did We Not Choose Each Other” come to be what they are? That’s my New York show.
Then the next part is the evolution of my New York life: Birds of New York, about coming back home after living in Los Angeles with my son.
One day I had all these voices, dialogue, and drama in my head, and I started writing them down. It was so clear and easy to write the dialogue that I had a 200-page play. Then I realized I would never sell it if I didn’t have songs in it. So I painstakingly turned some of the scenes into songs. Now I have a musical.
It’s heart-wrenching and funny because the characters are hilarious, but underneath it is deep and upsetting. Everyone has been through this kind of stuff in different ways: dealing with addiction and abuse in families, and these three people with completely different agendas and points of view having to work it out for their own spiritual evolution, which is survival, too. And it all happens in an apartment.
Evan: In a New York apartment.
Sophie: An apartment that’s very clear to me.
Evan: You’ve also got a tenth album in the works. Is that connected to the musical, or something completely different?
Sophie: It’s songs from in between. The show has had many stops and starts. I wrote the play, couldn’t get it off the ground, and it came back as a musical. In between, I’ve been writing songs. My son left and went to college; there’s a song there. Things keep happening that I keep writing about.
I have lots of songs for the next album. How to do it, I don’t know yet. I really liked doing Whaler Re-emerging because I liked doing it live in front of an audience. That was exciting. I don’t know how I’ll do this next one, but isn’t that kind of great?
Evan: Absolutely. What was it like to return to those arrangements and lyrics with thirty more years of life experience? What surprised you?
Sophie: I can’t do better, honestly. I can be different, and some of the songs in the musical might be up to that level, but I can’t do better than “As I Lay Me Down.” That song came straight from God. I don’t even have to believe in God to say that. I hear that song and think, “I can’t believe I channeled that.”
I remember the night as if it were yesterday. I can feel it coming out. I remember the feeling. I was right there. I’m not going to tell you anymore, because I want people to come to Joe’s Pub!
Evan: Oh, come on!
Sophie: No! I want them to come. If they don’t come, I’ll come back on your show. Going back is great because those songs are proven. They mean so much to me. You wouldn’t be talking to me without those songs.
Evan: Have we gone through everything? It’s quite a list of things you’re working on.
Sophie: We didn’t talk enough about Birds of New York, but that’s appropriate because once people get more familiar with it, there’ll be more questions and insights.
Evan: Is there a plan for Birds of New York to open? Are you ready to go, or is it still coming together?
Sophie: Two years ago I would have said we were opening. But that’s musicals for you. I have a plan I’m very excited about. It’s definitely off the beaten track, and you’ll hear about it. For me, 2027 is Birds of New York.
Evan: So next year Birds of New York will be flying into our consciousness, flapping its wings. Sophie B. Hawkins, this has been a real treat. I appreciate your time, and I admire your creative drive.
Sophie: Thank you so much. It’s sort of innate. What else would I do with this energy?
