Sharon Van Etten: 'Now I'm Just Trying To Be A Good Role Model For My Son'

“The world is a dark enough place already,” Sharon Van Etten begins. She’s telling us about the sense of optimism that seems to flow through her latest album, Remind Me Tomorrow, released in January this year. She thinks the hopefulness of the new album comes down to her “trying to be positive” since the birth of her first son in 2017. 

“Before I had a kid it was easier to bitch about what was going on in the world and in politics, and I was thinking about human nature and things like that. But now I'm just trying to be a good role model for my son, and live in this world that can be so negative and try to still be myself.” 

She speaks in an almost airy way – while she’s precise with her answers, her voice kind of seems to float along, stopping abruptly when she’s made her point. 

She says that some of the songs on Remind Me Tomorrow started off as love songs, but their meaning transmuted as her life changed – she started work on the album before she was pregnant, but didn’t finish it until after her son was born. 

“Stay originally was meant to be a love song to my partner,” she explains. “But when I was finishing the lyrics and everything, I realised that I was talking to this kid, and all the things that I wanted for him – and not just what I wanted out of my relationship but what I wanted to instil in this human being.” 

Returning to university in 2016 to train to become a therapist, Van Etten began learning about how different styles of therapy approach the way your past influences your present: “I got intrigued by the idea of how the past plays a role in your life and in moving forward.”

She explains that some therapeutic styles don’t address people’s pasts, focusing on living in the present, while others reach deep into and linger in people’s memories, or use people’s experiences to help them make plans for the future. 

Van Etten says reflecting back on her life in that way made her realise that she’s “at peace with most of [her] past”, which has in turn brought a sense of immediacy to her music. 

“Whenever I look too far ahead I get anxious, whenever I look too far in the past I get sad, and whenever I'm at the most calm in my life it's because I'm present. And I try to write that way.” 

There’s also a sense of humour to much of Van Etten’s lyrics, which isn’t often spoken about, critics instead focusing on her confessional mode or the specificity of her imagery. Sure, Van Etten conjures pictures with her writing – but sometimes those images are quite funny. 

“I think I insert [humour] here or there, just to remind people that I don't take myself too seriously. But I also try to write in a way that it's kind of normal talk, things that I'll actually say, words in my vocabulary. I'm not pulling out a thesaurus.

“I'm just trying to perfect the way I speak in my writing, if that makes sense. I like comedy, I like romance, I like drama – I like all aspects of the human condition. So I try to remind people that I'm funny too.” 

That hopeful lens from the record extends to Van Etten’s latest shows – she’ll be touring Australia in June with sets at major festivals like Vivid LIVE and Dark Mofo – where she’s made the decision to ditch some of her darker material, because she found that she couldn’t “be ok” and keep performing songs so mired to her past self.

“On the new tour I've taken out all of the songs that I feel like are negative and I'm focusing on the songs that are more positive. I just feel like in the past I got through break-ups and dark times by writing and they helped me out of those moments, but after a while I realised that I couldn't keep performing those songs anymore and be ok. 

“I'm glad they exist for other people but I found it hard playing some of those songs night after night and not having it affect me emotionally on a daily basis.”  

"I've taken out all of the songs that I feel like are negative and I'm focusing on the songs that are more positive."

Van Etten says she’s “excited” to return for her third Australian tour this year: “I like being exposed to new music and new people.”

She reminisces on her first trip Down Under for Falls Festival in 2012, reflecting that visiting Australia is a world away from her life at home in New York, and soon to be Los Angeles. 

“I was just kinda bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and people were showing me the ropes. We went to Tasmania and Byron Bay and I got to see the MONA and I got to go to Manly Beach. And it's just super diverse and really beautiful and a weird parallel universe compared to here.”