What are we to do with our grief? Heather Maloney asks that eternal question on her new album. The death of someone we love can shatter our worlds of normalcy. Our world is different without that person, but we have also changed. Music can help us cope. There are many grand works about the unfairness of life taken, the unknowingness of what, if anything, happens next, and the purpose of it all.
Some are simple in form and substance (James Taylor‘s “Fire and Rain”), others more eloquent and ambitious (Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”). These creations can bring comfort and presumably provided solace to their creators. However, does anyone really want to hear them when they are not in pain? Heather Maloney‘s latest release, Exploding Star, suggests the benefits of empathy and mourning when one is not bereaved. Sadness can bring us joy.
Joni Mitchell famously sang, “Laughing and crying, you know it’s the same release.” I cite Mitchell here because her music from the 1970s seems an obvious inspiration to Maloney. The title song essentially recapitulates Mitchell’s line that we are all stardust in terms of Maloney’s father’s death. There are several other specific references to the Canadian songstress’ classic albums, but more importantly, Heather Maloney’s singing and writing style seems directly drawn from the Mitchell songbook. That’s a good thing! They share an obsession with honestly addressing one’s emotions through the use of particular details. Their artistry lies in how they shape self-examination into songs that make personal observations into shared experiences.
Maloney presents her father as a Jersey boy boomer who loved music and a good joke, as well as his daughter. His life lessons suggest that while we all live and die alone, we are simultaneously all alone together. Pain and beauty are both part of life and as real as a familiar face and the insects in the backyard. Exploding Star was recorded in Maloney’s childhood home, and one can hear the creaks in the floor and her dad’s ghost in the music. Heather Maloney plays her father’s guitar and a Yamaha keyboard she had as a child. She originally wrote the songs for herself but was convinced by friends and family to release them. The album is mostly her, with her tour mates Isabella DeHerdt and Isaac Eliot joining in on harmony and making the arrangements.
The songwriter knows life goes on in the “Ordinary World” even though there is something extraordinary about everyday existence. A memory from the past, a dream, or a snatch of song can be a miracle that can make one feel alive. On tracks such as “Things I Thought I Needed”, “Light You Left Behind”, and “Angelfish” Maloney heralds the commonplace as a balm. One might not understand the reason for existence, but so what? There are some things for which there are no words.
Joni Mitchell left her daughter behind to pursue her music career. Her song “Little Green” reveals her deep love for the unknown girl and the mystery of just being in the world. Maloney finds a thousand shades of the color in “Oh My Green” in nature and within herself. There’s an irony in the fact that Mitchell’s songs provide a key for Maloney to understand the importance of her role as her father’s daughter in shaping her life, art, and way of seeing the world. The dozen cuts on Exploding Star may have been prompted by the death of the singer-songwriter’s father, but they express that the meaning of life can be found simply by living it.