Quick Q and A with Susan Werner
 by Kathy S-B  ·  6 October 2007

Susan Werner is a one-of-a-kind musician. As the All Music Guide says: “Werner is a songwriter and musician who is in such complete command of her gifts that it’s almost scary.” Susan’s wisdom and wit come through brilliantly in her songs and in her on-stage banter. You can get a flavor of what Susan’s all about by watching this medley of songs from her latest recording, “The Gospel Truth.” Susan Werner and Meg Hutchinson are appearing at the me&thee coffeehouse on Friday, October 12, 2007.

I love the quote from the New Yorker that says that you have brought “literacy and wit back to popular song.” Those are two very important elements and may be what attracts your fan base to you and your style of music. Do you find your fans are literate and witty too?

I find my fans are more literate, and funnier, than me. They usually just don’t happen to sing on pitch and play piano too. Which is why, with whatever amount of literacy and wit I possess, I get to write songs. Believe me, if we could get musical talent into some people’s ears and hands, we’d all be amazed.

There are audiences — Boston is dangerous, so is San Francisco, but especially in Texas — really, Texas, Austin, Fort Worth, Houston — where I actually have to be careful because the audience will give a better show than me. Really. If I start bantering with the audience, they’ll start with the wise cracks and smart remarks and I’m in pieces laughing. and then I have to fight to win the show back from them.

What was the reaction to your Weekend Edition interview on NPR? I’ve heard from several people who had never heard of you before hearing you on that show. Must be that same literate and tasteful audience, eh?

NPR’s nationally syndicated shows are so widely heard, it’s crazy. I mean, like, 26 million listeners to Morning Edition and All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, each. My web people could actually watch my CD climb the amazon charts, peaking at #3 that afternoon. totally freaky. My previous disc, “I Can’t Be New,” went to #1 on amazon. Same exact phenomenon.

Your foray into gospel music is such a perfect vehicle for you. “The Gospel Truth” has been called an “agnostic gospel” album. I understand that you did a fair amount of field research before you started recording this project. Did you visit churches of all faiths? Were there more similarities or differences between the churches you visited?

Well, i did confine my visits to Christian services — I didn’t get to mosques or Hindu temples — that’ll be another project, I’m sure. I’d send you the long list of 30 churches, but let’s say the range of things went from a Mormon service in Nevada to the Willow Creek mega-church in suburban Chicago to Al Green’s Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in Memphis (and yes the Rev. was IN, and ON) to the First Methodist Church in downtown Dallas, TX. and what I found was — if you break your leg and you need help, Sunday morning is a very good time to have this happen to you. And you might want it to happen to you outside a church. any church. because churches are where people gather who WANT to HELP. They WANT to be of use — they want to feel that their lives have meaning and purpose. I found people in general were in a very good frame of mind. They were kind, they were patient, they were generous. Uniformly.

Now, whether they’d all agree on whether to permit alcohol consumption or dancing and exactly what it takes to get into heaven and whether you can get divorced or not and whether there should be women in positions of leadership — well, that’s a different matter.

So I’d just go with the broken leg, at first. :)

On the NPR interview, you relayed the story about how you spontaneously decided to visit a black church shortly after the Katrina tragedy and about how there were some Katrina survivors present who had come up to Chicago from New Orleans.

It’s hard to get away from the fact that churches that open their doors to those in need like this one obviously do good things for lots of people. Your song “Help Somebody” gets to the core of what a good and compassionate community is capable of.

Yes and I’m already tired of the authors who are yapping away now about how religion is bad so they can sell their books. I mean, who is doing the prison ministry in this country? It isn’t the atheists getting together and going into the prisons. It just isn’t. it isn’t the agnostics running free medical clinics in La Crosse, Wisconsin. uh, no…

So please let’s just shut up and get on with it. What’s the slogan? Deeds not creeds. I like that. That about says it, right there.

Tell us about your alternate National Anthem, “My Strange Nation.” Have you sung it at many shows in red states? If so, what’s been the reaction?

Oh I’ve had people walk out. Had one guy in Pittsburgh upset after I sang “Strange Nation” — he walked up to my road manager, famous Jane, at the CD table and said,” I want my money back for all these Susan Werner CD’s. I didn’t know I was coming to a political rally… to Woodstock or something…” and Jane said, “Okay, dude. Just look out for the brown acid, man.” which i thought was pretty funny.

But many more people have walked out over the gospel stuff. Really. People will allow for free speech with politics — but religion’s a different matter. and it’s so weird — they say, “is nothing sacred?” but I say, “is everything sacred, sacred?” C’mon already.