In 1997, Lhasa de Sela released La Llorona, an exclusively Spanish language album that went platinum in Canada. I listened nearly exclusively to Christian music – most of it of the alternative rock variety, but some of it of the more treacly “Contemporary Christian Music” format.
In 2003, Lhasa de Sela released The Living Road, an album performed in Spanish, French, and English and earned her accolades across the major British and European press outlets. I listened primarily to moody second- and third-wave emo, struggling to figure out the next steps I needed to take in my life.
In 2009, Lhasa de Sela released Lhasa, an exclusively English language album that found her paring back her aesthetic to its roots. I listened mostly to indie rock and rap of the music press-approved variety, even as I attempted to break into that same field.
In 2010, Lhasa de Sela passed away from a year-long battle with breast cancer. I got married to the love of my life.
As someone who has pursued both a wide and deep awareness of music for most of his life, I’m unsure when or how I would have ever come across the work of Lhasa de Sela. And that frustrates me on an empirical, objective level. Then again, as Fred Goodman notes often throughout his excellent Why Lhasa de Sela Matters on University of Texas Press:
It frustrated Lhasa, too.
To be clear, she loved the attention she received throughout her adopted Montreal, Marseilles, and otherwise international audience. She purchased homes in both cities, recorded in both places, and otherwise traveled the world because she loved life, learning, and exploring. However, Lhasa also longed for some attention from the nation of her birth, but the American music press simply ignored her.
Hence, I shouldn’t get too down on myself for having never heard Lhasa’s music until 2019. Thanks to Goodman, I now have the opportunity to first immerse myself in her immense talent and then share it with the rest of the world.
Because let me tell you, she absolutely matters – it’s just that most of us can only come to this realization after her death.
Across 160 pages (and a post-script recounting of “The Girl-Fish,” Lhasa’s favorite folktale), Goodman crafts an enchanting story that’s nothing less than modern musical mythology. From her fantastical origin story as the self-educated child of two modern-day bohemians to her meteoric rise and roller-coaster career, Lhasa de Sela is presented as an incandescent artist worthy of people singing songs about her.
Why Lhasa de Sela Matters is very much organized and arranged as a traditional biography told in chronological order. While it features deft prose and taut pacing, the hallmark of the book is Goodman’s otherworldly interview skills. Specifically, his ability to weave together an immense amount of direct quotations from Lhasa’s inner circle and her own interview archives makes for a fresh and vital reading experience.
In lesser hands, this text would have felt like an overwrought, one-note obituary, one bemoaning how much the reader had missed by not knowing Lhasa’s music. Instead, Goodman invites you to first wrap yourself in this tragic tale of a life cut down in its prime, and then dive headlong into the music she created.
He is an advocate without being an apostle, which is a very difficult line to walk as a fan of someone’s music.
Furthermore, he avoids both overt hagiography and lazy editorializing by letting Lhasa and her family speak for themselves. Much like Lhasa lived her life as an open book, Goodman’s writing style lets the text be the text by focusing upon three tent poles:
- Lhasa’s Story
- Lhasa’s Music
- Lhasa’s People
Without retelling her story entirely – because you need to read Why Lhasa De Sela Matters for yourself – Lhasa’s parents were the black sheep of their families. They provided Lhasa and her sisters a supremely unorthodox child, one that ranged from vans and cabins in rural New York State to the western coasts of Mexico and across the United States. By 13, she was performing Billie Holiday covers in bars, and by 19, she moved to Montreal to make it full-time as a singer.
Completely self-taught in terms of general education and the arts specifically, her parents encouraged her to learn and pursue what she wanted, simply because it interested her. Not only was she an accomplished portrait painter, but she wrote poetry, spoke multiple languages fluently, and could discuss philosophy and criticism with glee.
In terms of her craft, it’s a cheap American trope to describe anything not sung in English and not performed according to the traditional dictates of the pop-rock as “world music.” To be sure, Lhasa did borrow from a veritable cornucopia of global styles, but never with the intent of copying them. She was more of a spiritual collaborator, calling upon under-the-radar folkloric music from Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Eastern Europe, America, the Middle East, and South America to give weight, heart, and depth to her lyrics. And as a lyricist and performer, she was given to intense, profound melodrama, but she never wallowed in misery.
Instead, she wanted listeners to feel with her – even if you didn’t understand the language in which she sang on any given song.
Fiercely idealistic to a fault, this musical force of nature followed her heart and lived her life on her terms. But she did so with such grace, humor, and honesty that people bought wholesale into who she was and what she wanted to accomplish. This includes nearly all of her siblings and a passionate inner circle of regular collaborators. She was less a benevolent benefactor than a ringleader of a sprawling coterie of freewheeling iconoclastic artisans, some of whom were sisters she actually joined in an actual circus around the turn of the millennium.
And by focusing on her timeline, as opposed to stretching for a theme or straining to cobble together a few topics, Goodman allows the reader to develop their own ideas, thoughts, and opinions about these severely under-appreciated artists.
Why does Lhasa de Sela matter? Because she loved music, life, and people with rich intensity, and she created just as she lived.
Sure, she wasn’t the first artist to perform with such unbridled emotion (and she won’t be the last), but most people no matter their profession don’t live everyday life in the same way. She evinced a purity of spirit that cut through the defenses of even the most jaded music industry lifers she’d meet, and that approach to life should be a model for every one of us.
Now, go check out this Spotify playlist of Lhasa’s music that Fred Goodman created to accompany his book. You’ll thank me later.