“My wife, Denise, always says you can catch more flies with honey,” Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Murray McLauchlan tells American Songwriter in a recent phone interview, discussing his new album, Hourglass. Released July 9 via True North Records, the 10-track collection—McLauchlan’s 20th studio album—speaks to enduring issues of racism and privilege.
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He continues, “So I found that if you place a darker or a heavier lyric within a lighter and more beautiful musical framework, it sort of sneaks by people a little bit. A social commentary without the sledgehammer.”
These folk songs, each country-tinged and of philosophical nature, are characteristic of McLauchlan’s decade-spanning contribution to the songwriting tradition. Yet, like each of his past works, the artist took a new approach to create what sounds and feels like his most personal, political album to date.
Crafting the songs dates back several years. Many began as poems, tangled etchings of McLauchlan’s emotions as he reacted to the global happenings over the past decade. “I was basically writing to get things off my chest,” he says. “The process by which they became songs, was different from anything I’ve done before.”
In refining his prose, McLauchlan attempted to strip the narratives down to their rawest form. “As an artist what you’re really trying to do is distill what you perceive is going on in the world, and filter it through you’re own emotions,” he says. “Then you create something that makes the emotion accessible to people who otherwise might not be able to have that take on it.”
The artist continues, “I tried to make the compositions simple and accessible, like children’s songs for adults,” says McLauchlan. “I’ve never tried that before. I’m pushing 73 now and I still feel I’m getting better at what I do.”
Many of these ideas have been stewing in his head far before the political tension, racial justice protests, and economic crisis admist the current global pandemic. Album opener, “The One Percent” dates back to the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in 2011. Lyrically, he responds to the way in which those protestors, sitting in on Wall Street, were dismissed by major media as “a bunch of idiots.”
“They didn’t know why those people were there, and at the time I thought, ‘I know exactly why,” says McLauchlan. “And even now, nothing has really occurred to mitigate the unequal distribution of resources.”
This sentiment sets the tone for Hourglass as a thoughtful lamentation on the steadfastness of oppressive systems while celebrating the resilience of the human spirit.
Songs like “I Live On A White Cloud” provoke questions about inherited disparity—an especially poignant topic following the murder of George Floyd and a devastating number of other Black men at the hands of police. Others cover the unstable, selfish nature of a consumer culture, and the implications of material greed.
The title track centers the project with a glimmering outlook, empowering the listener to recognize their own strength in changing the world. McLauchlan’s introspective lyrics inventory an overwhelming shopping list of the work that still needs to be done. He presents the choices we have to make and the appropriate actions we must take so that the choices and actions are not made by others.
“I’m a cockeyed optimist and, and I try and bring that to light in the music that I’m creating,” says McLauchlan. “I never want to be a clarion call for the end of the world. I think that people are capable of doing what’s necessary to make things are better. And I do also believe that the arc of history is generally, towards better.”
Listen to Murray McLauchlan’s new album, Hourglass, here.
