Name: Tamara Lindeman
Nationality: Canadian
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: The Weather Station's new full-length albm Humanhood is slated for release on January 17th 2025 via Fat Possum. Pre-order the album on bandcamp. Lead single "Neon Signs" is out now. In another recent project, Tamara invited several artists to cover the songs of her album How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, including Luka Kuplowsky, Hand Habits, and Courtney Marie Andrews.
Current event: In support of the album, The Weather Station will embark on a full-band European tour starting February 2025. Catch them playing live at one of the following dates:



[Read our Luka Kuplowsky interview]
[Read our Hand Habits interview]
[Read our Courtney Marie Andrews interview]

If you enjoyed these thoughts by The Weather Station's Tamara Lindeman and would like to know more, visit the band's official website. They are also on Instagram, and Facebook.

For a deeper dive, read our earlier The Weather Station interview.
 


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?

Interesting - now that I think of it, my musical beginnings were really instrumental. When I was a kid, I often ran a musical soundtrack in my head to my life. I kind of just played music, mostly orchestral, in my head as I did things, to score what I was doing.

My first record (The Line) is pretty instrumental too.



Lyrics were like the mountain I wanted to climb to see if I could do it. I find them to be far and away the greatest challenge.

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

I agree completely.

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?

I like escapism too - but I think for whatever reason my writing practice is strongly built around truth. I really obsess over whether I’m presenting something accurately, and whether I’m including parts I don’t want to present, but that are important or accurate.

I really excavate my own thoughts and experiences to try and pare away ego and whatever else, to have the song be honest and accurate, even if what I’m describing is a thought process or an idea.

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

Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are the two north stars, of course - very different but absolutely the two people whose bodies of work I return to again and again.

But honestly, my lyrical sense was shaped by artists closer to home - Jennifer Castle, Sandro Perri, Constantines (Bry Webb & Steven Lambke), Ryan Driver, Richard Laviolette - this whole scene of Toronto or nearby based writers who really shaped my sense of what was possible in lyrics.



I also would shout out Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip for being there as a weird poet disguised as a rock singer in my small town teenagehood.

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?

I think music is a lot more physical.

I feel music as a landscape; either a real life one or an emotional one. Music is inner landscape. Poetry is a totally different thing than that.  

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

I think without music I wouldn’t write much.

Music gives a vehicle for words to move and be alive and have resonance. They get picked up and put down new places. Music is wonderful for words.

What kind of musical settings and situations do you think are ideal for your lyrics?

Headphones, walking.

When working on music, when do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

For me they have to come together. I play an instrument, I sing words, I transcribe the words, I interpret them, and then I edit and add and subtract.

But it’s all integrated. I always try to include words I wrote without music but they never work rhythmically or emotionally.


The Weather Station Interview Image by Brendan George Ko

Do you feel like the music triggers specific words inside you? Or is more of a feeling or a memory? Would you say there is instantly an entire idea in front of you or does the story grow as you keep listening to the music?

I have this practice of improvising and then interpreting what I improvised. So yes - I think the words come from the music or the chord changes or the moment in time when I’m sitting and writing.

I do often write from memory or a feeling or a problem. Story is always the problem for me - it’s like - which thread do you choose? How do you fit all the possibilities into the song?

More generally, in how far can music take you to places with your writing you would possibly not have visited without it?

Absolutely. I also think the opposite - that writing can go places music can’t.

But writing is just more cerebral; music is really important to me because it is both cerebral and more emotional / intuitive / mysterious.

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?

Yes - it definitely does. I definitely fit odd words into singing but yes - I need it to sound right or else it’s not a lyric.

I definitely sing my own songs the best. I try really hard to be a good interpreter of other songs but I’m not as good as I want to be - I think ultimately my own songs make sense when I sing them.


The Weather Station Interview Image by Brendan George Ko

In how far are you consciously aware of the meaning of the lyrics you're writing during the creative process? Do you need to have a concrete concept or can the words take the lead?

The meaning is very important. It’s everything to me. I do need to feel like the song has something to say - otherwise I don’t bother to finish it or record it.

I usually have a pretty strong sense of a meaning when I’m writing but then again songs also usually have hidden additional meanings or resonances I don’t figure out until years later.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of 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?

Absolutely it’s different from making a cup of coffee.

I express most of my life through music, and yet I spend most of my life doing mundane tasks - yet another paradox of humanhood :)