Name: Marnie Webe
Nationality: American
Occupation: Artist, filmmaker, musician
Current release: Marnie Weber's new album Returning Home: The Music of Marnie Weber is out via Phantom Limb.
Recommendations for Los Angeles, USA: The Mountain View Mauseleum. It is architectural masterpiece built in 1923 housing hand painted frescoes, California craftsman furniture, stained glass, ornate ironwork and sculptures. I was lucky enough to perform there in 2010 in the main hall lined with cripts with my fictitious band of dead girls, called “The Spirit Girls”. (If anyone plans to visit the mauseleum I’d call for hours first, as I’m not sure when the full reopening will be after the terrible Altadena fires swept through there. The building was saved thank goodness.)
Things I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I don’t usually talk about things unless I’m asked. I’m not one of those people that can carry on a monologue. I grew up in a very quiet, stoic house raised by depression era parents. I kept to myself and my thoughts weren’t called upon. They said I was a quiet child but perhaps no one asked.
Nowadays, I pretty much appreciate anyone asking me what I think about anything. When people can finally snap out of their iphone reveries and have a real conversation I like to talk about the big things in life, spirits, ghosts, death, animal communication, things that exist beyond the veil.
One thing I’m really surprised by is that more young people aren't interested old people and what they think about. When I was in highschool I worked in a nursing home and I loved to listen to what the elderly people would tell me about their lives. They wanted to tell me so much, desperate for someone to listen. Some of the stories may have been talltales or embellished - but fact or fiction, it told me about how they wanted to be perceived or remembered.

If you enjoyed this Marnie Weber interview and would like to stay up to date with her work, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, and Facebook. 



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

As an early teen I went to many theatrical rock shows (for example Peter Gabriel/Genesis, Bowie, Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Rick Wakeman/Yes, King Crimson and any concert I could of the early Prog rockers). The musicians would dress up in costume, sometimes take on the guise of other characters, and sing the lyrics from the expression of the fictitious alter ego. These shows transported me.

When I was younger, as a preteen, and studying guitar and learning folk songs I assumed the lyrics had to be written from the life and point of view of the author. The revelation that you could create a fictitious character and tell a wild narrative that wasn’t true to your actual life (but expressed a part of who you were) absolutely blew my mind.

I knew I wanted to tell stories through my art.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?

Me too. I think in these fantastical stories the passion runs very deep and strong and the landscapes and other worlds express the surreal nature of those intense emotions. It’s as if the artistic expression becomes dreamscapes for the unconscious.

My everyday life is far too dull to write about. I have to become someone else and go somewhere adventurous. To write about anything interesting

What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics?

Well Bowie is a given, I was very much into the worlds created by Yes, both in the music and album covers, Genesis in a very big way.

Lamb Lies Down on Broadway sent me into a reverie as I listened to it hundreds of times.



The album is about the travels and trials of the lead character Rael in New York City. Even the name Rael plays on the word “real”.

Can it get any weirder than “The Carpet Crawlers”?



What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?

I’m really inspired by Lana del Rey.

Her lyrics seem routed in Americana folklore but in the deep Gothic southern world which makes them so passionate and seem like “live or die” scenarios.

Have there been song lyrics which actually made you change (aspects of) your life?

Many but for an example, Bowie’s lyrics in “Time”, “breaking up is hard but keeping dark is hateful, I had so many dreams, I had so many breakthroughs…”’ literally made me break up with someone.



Seems funny at the time now.

What do you think, leant them that power?

Nowadays if you have a problem you can just google it but back then you looked for lyrics to help you understand what you were going through.

The poetry of the lyrics combined with the melodies seem to reach deeper into the subconscious to create the powerful impulse necessary for change and growth. It works through your body rather than read by the brain.

It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?

Yes, so true and the lyrics are like the doors that open to the music and then the music reaches into the emotional state and then transformation happens in the subconscious.

I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?

They work so in unison. My mother was an avid collector of poetry books and loved poetry. Poetry was an aspect of her I didn’t see in everyday life of cooking and cleaning. I wish I could have experienced the part of her that was deeper when she was alive.

Poetry and lyrics are such private spaces. Perhaps music is a catalyst to the same private space. Like in acting, there is the exercise of a “private moment” when you’re on stage but seemingly being alone which carries an aura of solitude and emotional vulnerability.

The relationship between words and music has always intrigued me. How do you see it?

The music helps give rhythm to the words and keep them honest. When I do soundtracks to my films the music acts as the lyrics as I rarely use dialogue in my films nor do I use lyrics, the soundtracks are always instrumental. Music can take the place of a character’s thoughts and expressions.

I’m not really sure the point I’m trying to make here but perhaps the words can be false words and used to hide behind - but music isn’t used that way.

In how far can music take you to places with your writing you would possibly not have visited without it?

If I were to write a story instead of telling it through one of my songs it would be much harder to achieve the emotional feeling.

What are areas/themes/topics that you keep returning to in your lyrics?

The themes of personal transformation, freedom and yearning.

Travel, ships, running away, clowns, animals, birds, monsters and human-hybrid creatures and ghosts always going somewhere in far off nature filled fantasy lands.

On the basis of a piece off Returning Home: The Music of Marnie Weber, tell me about how the lyrics grew into their final form and what points of consideration were.

The title of the album “Returning Home” speaks of that journey to far off lands and coming home metaphorically.

On the cover a young girl character is a moth standing in the doorway of a decrepit and abandoned house. It’s as if she went on a long journey, transformed into a moth and then returned home to find out things weren’t as she left them. The album cover and title gives formation to all the songs chosen.



The songs are a culmination from many years but if I were to look for a theme running through the lyrics it is about ultimately about being alone. Something I reflect on as I grow older and my final transformation and departure grows closer.

Do you tend to start writing with what will be the first line of the finished lyrics?

No never the first line. Something later ends up being the first line.

I tend to grab interesting phrases and then piece them together like a collage. I do a lot of collage work as a visual artist so the practice of piecing together comes naturally.

What about the chorus?

Whatever fits with the melody at that point.

I try not to stress too much to make things fit. I’d rather abandon a few words than to struggle.

What are the words that set the process in motion?

Just the ones that fit the melody ultimately. Otherwise it sounds contrived.

I'd love to know how you think the meaning or effect of an individual song is enhanced, clarified or possibly contradicted by the EPs, or albums it is part of. Does the song, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?

Well for instance in “The Passionate One” back in the 90’s I acted the song out on stage as an old woman who comes out with her guitar perched on her walker plugged in and booming with each agonizing step.



I’d sing about my hopes and dreams, rip my old lady mask off and take off my big muu muu to reveal a skimpy, sparkly dress and the face of a young hopeful girl, a wanna be pop star. She talks about where she wants to go in life, no matter where her passions drive her.

The song first appeared on an early album when I was actually young, now it appears on an album at an age where I’m much closer to the fictional old lady who first presented the song and sang it while growing younger on stage. The context changes the song and it becomes reflection on being youthful.

I’m lucky enough to have lived long enough that the song came full circle!

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?

Well since I always write “in character” and it is an alter ego, so in a way I’m always singing someone else’s words though it is an aspect of me and written by me.

I’ve literally never written a song as just plain old Marnie. That would feel embarrassing and weird.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

Many of my gay identifying male friends love “Coquette Circus Girl” and say it's their favorite song of mine.

This gave me insights into the character, Coquette. She seems more fun and playful and less dark and sad than I used to view her.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing song lyrics or poetry is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Ha ha everything in my life seems more mundane than what goes on in my songs.

I can compare it to my other forms of art making. Writing lyrics is more acute and clear there is no room for being vague, it’s right there on the paper and has to fit, whereas painting or film making can be more free flowing in a way.