Chords for Beth Hart interview (part 1)

[G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] If I listen to your album, [Eb] _ [E] there's one question that still [N]
comes into my mind.
Is this the happiest period of your life?
[G] It's one of the best periods of my life so far.
[E] _ _ [Gm] It's been good for many years now when it comes to my relationship with my husband.
That's been a [Db] rock from the beginning.
But [Abm] musically, [G] it has shifted so much that I'm very excited about a new path [Db] that I'm
choosing to go down [Gm] as a writer that is so different from my past.
So I think that's what I'm [N] really excited about.
When did you decide to take this new path?
Well, after the record My California, which was a really dark record for me in terms of
lyrics, I felt kind of like I'd been writing about addiction and internal demons and self-disappointment
and stuff like that, anger, for so many years.
And I was struggling with that, so I was writing about that.
And then after that record, I felt like I was done.
I didn't have anything else [E] to really say about that.
And [Ab] I was kind of annoyed with my own voice and the way I played.
I just felt like I was in a box, like a safe box, and I didn't know [G] where else to go.
When did you have this feeling?
Right after My California [Bb] record.
Right after?
[Gm] So not during recording?
No.
The [Ab] writing for that [A] record was just an incredible experience, [Eb] and it was very cathartic.
[C] And then we recorded it very fast, and I [Ab] went out and promoted it.
[G] But I didn't feel a [N] connection to writing anymore after that.
And if I'm not writing, I don't want to perform.
[A] I don't want to lie.
[Bb] I don't want to put out something just to write, [G] so I can go out for a tour.
[N] And so I was at a crossroads of like, I don't know if I'm going to do this anymore.
And I'd done it my whole life and loved it my whole life.
But I was like, I don't think I have anything else to say.
And right when I was about to just say, forget it, I'm done.
It must have been hard to have this feeling.
Scary.
[G] Really scary.
And it made me angry.
I was like, how can this be?
I thought it was going to get deeper as I got older.
[A] And then I realized, you have to be willing to get outside your comfort zone.
You can't stay in a safe place anymore, and you're done talking about these subjects.
Maybe it will come up again in [Gm] the future, but you have [G] to try and challenge yourself.
This is what I'm saying to myself.
You have to challenge yourself on a new [Eb] type of music, a new way of writing.
Or you should just maybe quit for a while.
Take five years off or just never do it again.
[N] And I wasn't comfortable with that, but I didn't know what else to do.
And then out of the blue, Joe Bromasse asked me to make a record with him.
And it was a record called Don't [G] Explain, of covers.
Why did he ask you?
He was a fan of a record I did called 37 Days.
[Eb] And he came to [G] some shows, but I never got a chance to meet him at the shows.
But he said to my husband he wanted to make a [N] record with me.
And then I bumped into him here at this same place, right here.
And he said, [A] I really do want to make a record with you.
I said, well, I want to make a record with you too.
And he said, how about us doing a soul covers record?
Covers of our favorite songs that [G] we feel are soulful, whether it be rock or jazz, blues,
or just straight up soul school, you know?
[D] Tina [A] Turner and stuff like that.
[Gm] And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[G] Well, when we went to make the record, it was like I was [C] 10 years [B] old.
I had [Db] just come [N] across writing lyrics to a song for the first time.
That excited feeling, that scary feeling, you don't really know what you're doing.
But it feels right, and you're so [Gm] excited.
And suddenly, from doing that record, this [G] whole well opened up inside,
both musically and lyrically, of this is what I'm going to do.
This is where I'm going to go.
[Ab] Is there one [G] song that you did for this album with him that triggered this, maybe?
Or is it just the whole?
The song Don't Explain, probably more than any.
My mother [N] turned me on to Billie Holiday when I was a very little girl.
And there were two songs from her that I loved, I think, the most.
And one was Strange Fruit, and the other was Don't Explain.
And the song Don't Explain inspired me to write a song called Mama,
that I wrote later on on a record called Screaming From My Suffer, for my mother.
But now, it was like, OK, I'm so addicted to this.
I was re-reminded of what made me want to be a writer in the first place,
but I never went down that alley.
I wrote about other things.
You were saying re-re [Gm]-re-reminded.
What was it?
I was re-reminded of why I wanted to start writing and singing [G] in the first place.
And what was it?
Why?
Well, first it was classical music, and I was only writing [A] music.
There was no lyrics, no singing.
And then when my mother turned me on to Ella Fitzgerald and [F] Billie Holiday [C] and Dinah Washington,
and my brother was turning me on [G] to Bob Marley and Peter Tosh,
and then my friends were turning me on to Etta James and Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding and Sam Cooke,
and then I was hearing Carole King and James Jett,
and all these [E] different artists were coming my way, and it was like, oh my [F] God, this is great.
There are so many things I love, the hard rock thing I [N] love.
So I kind of started with that first.
I didn't [Eb] do this, what was my first love.
I went to rock first, and then I went [C] into storytelling,
and all [Gm] these different avenues [A] throughout the records I've made.
[G] But it wasn't until this record that I went, I don't know what [Gm] I'm doing,
but I'm going to try to see if I can [G] write this kind of way, this feeling, romantic love.
And [Eb] so I started, and it was really frustrating, and [Gm] just when I was getting ready to [Eb] give up,
I read an article in the LA [N] Times from Leonard Bernstein,
who had said many years ago, he said,
when you stumble across a new art form for yourself that you're no good at,
and you don't know what you're doing,
but it is enticing, it's luring you,
but you don't feel so good about [Gm] it, but you're interested in it.
[G] He said, know that that is a very special [A] time.
It will never [Ab] come again, [Gm] this new feeling.
And you're about to do really great work,
but you have to be willing to feel uncomfortable as you're searching.
And that was it, that was the thing that cemented it.
Between [G] Joe Baramassa and Leonard Bernstein, and the songs that we did,
[N] it shifted a whole new thing, and it just made me feel young again and alive again,
and suddenly all these [Eb] different stories that I'd never even thought to tell