On the Mistletoe of Gratitude

2023 In review, more shows added to The Finale Tour, and the Sarah McLachlan tour announce

Tonight, having finally gotten home, I’m sitting in my little shed where I sat for many long hours during the pandemic and wrote the bulk of Multitudes. There’s a thin layer of dust covering every surface, a broken synth and an empty guitar case on a pile of blankets. My speakers look tired, like their eyes are closed. Somehow the lamp is gone but a miniature two octave piano that Blake Mills had delivered after I’d left on tour is sitting tiny and quiet. Everyone is tucked in. There’s a piece of Sound City letterhead with the songs check marked, asterisked, crossed out, thumbtacked to the wall. Signs I’ve been here a lot and signs I’ve been gone, for a long time. 

Even if it weren’t the end of the year I’d be looking back, because the road is still behind me like its following me, it’s underneath me rumbling as I try to stay still, and it’s unspooling in front of me too but I can’t look at that yet. I’ve done this return so many times, a life of époques delineated by releasing albums, coming to your town, feeling the tricksy eternal present of playing music to you, to the town next to you and next to that, feeling the rarified air of sharing the tension of togetherness called a gig. It’s a circle, this coming and going and this year I felt a real appreciation for all these years of returning, myself as well as you. Thank you for coming back too.

This year I felt 20 years fold into an instant when I walked on stage in Paris, I remembered the open generosity of the midwest in Madison and St.Louis, I felt cosy in the firmament of the Lisbon Coliseu, played in a boxing ring to the the loud love of Dublin and leaned into a hug of balconies in London and Stockholm and Montreal. My girl on the tour bus with her idea of the world being opened wide like a window, all the small kindnesses that we found along the way. 

But, inevitably, getting maybe a bit too tired, or tired of myself, and coming home to an old movie called domesticity, shaking out the dust to find more dust and humility and inevitable confusion. And so here’s to the mistletoe of gratitude, head spinning though I may be. And the quiet of feeling devoid of songs, somehow, paradoxically and utterly. My friend Todd said this morning that he’s heard me remark on this quiet a hundred times over the years so I guess it’s part of this cycle of in and out, on and off.

We’ll leave again in February to tie a bow on the 4 year long honest to goodness truth serum of a life chapter called Multitudes, and then again in the early summer to play with a woman who I’m certain knows all about this inside/ out folding of self into sound, and sound into motherhood and has shaken the dust out and into many songs that soundtracked my early life. I’m honoured to be going on tour with Sarah McLachlan, who I met when I was 16 and tongue tied and out on the first tour of my life. The circle circling. 

Happy Holidaze, 

Leslie

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Due to popular demand, hot date with me (and your hot date) for Valentine’s Day. 3rd Vancouver show added on February 14th.

Artist Presale:   Wed Dec 13, 10 am Local, password: REDWING
On Sale:   Fri Dec 15, @ 10 am Local

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LOVE FOR MULTITUDES, 2023 In Review

Best Albums of 2023, The New York Times

Best Albums of 2023, NPR

Best Albums of 2023, SPIN

Best Rock Albums of 2023, Pitchfork

Best Albums of 2023, CBC

100 Best Songs of 2023, Pitchfork

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It never gets old to lean against the piano of my old pal Chilly Gonzales with a hot toddy and sing instructions for how to make a banister bough (and not cut down a tree).

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So pleased to announce we’re joining Sarah McLachlan on tour this spring.

On Sale: Fri, Dec 15, 12 pm local

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