Sounding Out: Laura Gibson

"I read this quote by a poet that said ‘all poetry is a love act.’ I really think that so much of what I do really comes from that space. I feel most able to write from this place of caring."

Many years before Laura Gibson was a songwriter and musician, she was a young girl living in the small isolated logging town of Coquille, Oregon. In this town, folks moved to the same rhythm, at least while the mills were running. When the whistles blew everyone knew what time it was. Time to work, time to break, time to go home. Laura wrote poetry, she participated in math competitions, and she sat beside her father with her mother and others from hospice when he was sick and dying from cancer.

While Laura has been shaped by her childhood, to say that it is the case is difficult without sounding cliché. We are all shaped by our pasts. But it would be wrong not to start with Laura’s past when talking about her music and writing. Working hard, grieving, feelings of isolation, sharing intimate moments, feeling the rhythms of the world around her, these are all things that Laura not only embraces but also explores in her music.  

Laura came to music later in her life. She actually did not pick up the guitar or start writing songs until she was half way through college.  Laura said that she started playing as a means to put words together in a different kind of a way.

“College is a place where I was first starting to look at and explore my place in the world. It was a time when I discovered that songwriting was a way to understand myself and understand the world. It was a revelation for me. And so I really had to catch up on guitar in order to get out these songs that I had in me. It was really a means of making songs.”

As a child, Laura had a love of putting words together and poetry helped Laura set her foundation for expressing all the thoughts and feelings running through her head. I asked Laura if she always wanted to share her thoughts and words with others or if this came later.

“I think that a part of it was there. I remember the first poem that I ever wrote. Everyone was writing letters to this little boy from my Sunday school class who was sick in the hospital with cancer. I wrote this this short little poem to him. His parents really loved the poem and they published it in a magazine and a newsletter. I just remember this feeling……that this was important to someone and that this had meaning outside of my own head. That really impacted me. I was somewhere around the age of 8.”

As Laura started writing songs in college, she said that there was a desire to share them with others as well. “Your putting words to something and putting music to something that you just can’t quite say in a normal communication. When I first started writing songs I dreamed about there being a listener because it is a way of saying what you can’t say. “

When Laura did finally begin share her songs with others, she did not choose to perform them in coffee shops or clubs. Instead she volunteered her time to sing and play at Our House Of Portland, a community that supports people with advanced HIV/AIDS. For Laura, she remembered all of the support that she and her mom received when her dad was so sick and she felt that this is where her time and music belonged.

“I read this quote by a poet that said ‘all poetry is a love act.’ I really think that so much of what I do really comes from that space and I feel most able to write from this place of caring. It may come in the form of grief, or in a form of frustration with injustice. But I think that there is a string of affection even when I am really not writing traditional love songs. I think of them as love songs, but not romantic in nature.”

That figurative space led Laura back home to an actual space, her childhood home, where she spent a month reading through love letters that her grandparents had written back and forth to one another. She had never met them, but during this quiet and isolated time with those letters, she felt that she grew to know her grandparents in an intimate way. These letters, her connection to them and to her grandparents, and the connection between her grandparents inspired her first album If You Come To Greet Me, which was released in 2006.

“When people ask me what I tend to feel inspired by, what I write about, human connection is always one of the themes of what I do.”

On her second album, Beasts Of Seasons, and on her new album La Grande, Laura’s songs continue to explore themes of caring and love, loss and grief, time and space. But a noticeable difference between the albums is the evolution and expansion of Laura’s sound.

With Beasts of Seasons, Laura’s intention was to ensure that her compositions remained delicate and personal. She said that she “wanted them to feel fleshed out but still feel true to the fact that you’re singing a song on an acoustic guitar.”

Now, on her third album, rhythm and volume play a larger role in helping deliver her stories. I told Laura that one could hear a bit of this evolution on the song Spirited from the Beasts Of Seasons album. I asked her how conscious she was in wanting to have this evolution. She said that Spirited was a really good song to bring up.

“When I first started to write that song I almost felt like it was so poppy and that it could not possibly be meaningful. I did not even think that it fit within the themes of the record, so I was hesitant to include that song initially.” But she said she realized that it was one of the most meaningful songs on that record.

“I learned from Spirited that I can still focus on the craft of writing and have meaning within the more upbeat moments. So this time around I really wanted to let go of that limitation that I had chosen for myself. What moves me in making and listening to music is that intimacy and vulnerability that happens. I got really interested in this kind of experiment of whether or not I could achieve that by exploring and indulging with my songwriting.”

Laura said that she has found that there is more than one way of achieving intimacy with a listener. In some respects, Laura felt that she was able to give more of herself and be even more vulnerable within her new songs even though it does not seem like a more vulnerable record.

No longer armed with simply an acoustic guitar, Laura approached her new album differently, working and writing from day one with two drummers as well as herself. Rhythm became the backbone of La Grande.

“Rhythm always had a place in my music. A lot of times songs would start with me and a guitar and I would let that set the rhythm. I am definitely not one to keep or require perfect time on my records. There are a lot of ebbs and flows as far as speed and rhythm. There is almost a breathing thing as far as how I approach how songs flow. This time around I was excited about percussion and having this real heart beat behind everything. Something that is a bit more driving to set the pace for what I do.”

Rhythm became so important to this album, that she even sings about the idea of rhythm in the opening song. “In the line of the song I was imagining this train coming through and rattling by and all of these whispered conversations being turned into music by the train coming by. I like thinking about this in the context of my own understanding of rhythm.”

Laura first started working on the new batch of songs for the album when she was visiting the Eastern Oregon Community of La Grande. She said that the town's geography, and history of wagons, courage, and moving forward resonated with her own sense of moving forward and asserting her being into the word. “I became really interested in the history of the La Grande area. It is a place that represents both the triumphs and tragedies of the American West.” She said the town and history helped give her clarity and confidence in terms of where she wants to go musically.

“So many times I have been to a place where I have felt the landscape and the culture was giving shape to something that I was feeling or wanting to understand. Going out to that place whose identity is very much about the idea of moving forward both in the positive transcendent ways and tragedy and grief that comes with moving forward really did that for me on this trip. I almost feel like I have these feelings welling up inside of me about where I wanted to go and what kind of musician I wanted to become.” La Grande, she said, gave her the images that she needed to help explain where she wanted to go.

I asked Laura what she meant when she talked about the tragedy and grief that comes with moving forward. She said that specifically, historically in the west there is a lot of tragedy with the native American population, including some specific to the areas in and around La Grande. 

"There was and is much to be grieved about that movement forward.  In my own life I feel like one of my gifts in a sense is to be a griever. I think that connects to the choices that I have made in my life and the songs that I write. I feel like that is a gift. But I was also interested in what does it mean to move forward and not be bound by grief, to try and transcend it in a way.”

With La Grande, Laura has arrived at a new musical level and space. Yet the essence of what makes her so special as an artist has not changed; her ability as a songwriter to share with you the world, as she experiences it, through her open heart and eyes. La Grande, with its heartbeat like rhythms and beautiful musical texturing, elevates this experience for the listener, creating imagery behind the words. This imagery not only enhances her stories, but works to draw the listener in closer. And in doing so, she continues to create the intimacy with her music that she will always seek out.

Laura is out touring in support of her album now. You can check out her tour dates here.