Les traductions pour les articles avant l\u2019automne 2013 ne sont pas disponibles pour le moment.<\/b><\/p>\n
Perspective.
\nIt\u2019s something we all want. It\u2019s something we all think we have. Yet it\u2019s something few truly understand, and many misunderstand. Lack of perspective keeps some from getting the most out of life and others remaining bitter, angry, and out-of-touch to the world\u2019s realities. Still others view the world from too narrow a perspective that closes their eyes to what matters most. One definition, according to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, is \u201ca mental view of the relative importance of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perspective is something Dan Mangan sings about a lot on his latest album Oh, Fortune, released in September. It\u2019s one of many themes and metaphors he mines from the recesses of his mind. The Vancouver singer-songwriter’s last disc Nice, Nice, Very Nice (2009) certainly exceeded his expectations; it helped him put his music career into perspective while opening many doors. The record was his coming-out party, if you will. It was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, it won iTunes Album of the Year in the singer-songwriter category, and he was named XM The Verge Artist of the Year, an honour that came with a $25,000 prize..
Words + Music caught up with Mangan in the musician\u2019s perennial home away from home \u2013 the tour van \u2013 following the white line and passing the time talking about the 11 choice cuts on Oh, Fortune, which debuted at No. 9 on the Soundscan charts.<\/p>\n
One of the songs that speaks directly about perspective is \u201cLeaves, Trees, Forest.\u201d \u201cThat song is about isolation, and it\u2019s also about perspective,\u201d says Mangan. \u201cThe idea is that when you are focused on the leaves, then all you see are the leaves. When you focus on the tree, you forget the leaf, and all you see is the tree. Then, when you look at a great distance, you see the forest in its entirety. You are now so disconnected from how incredibly intricate and marvellous that leaf was in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a metaphor for a lot of things,\u201d he adds. \u201cThe world is very chaotic with a lot going on… Trying to give yourself as much perspective as you can is really all you can do. What I\u2019ve learned is that it\u2019s okay to not have the right answer. It\u2019s okay to say, it\u2019s bigger than me and I don\u2019t need to suffer because I haven\u2019t figured it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Grammy-award winner Daniel Lanois, Mangan is also fascinated by sonic textures. He appreciates both the sounds and the emotional places where they take him. \u201cI love how different sounds make me feel,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
On Oh, Fortune, those sounds lead down some roads less taken. The literate songsmith opens listeners’ eyes and ears to many issues without preaching or teaching. Through metaphor and music, Mangan sends a message; but, when asked about it, he says he\u2019s not trying to enlighten anybody.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t give myself enough credit to do that,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just my own mental process to take the thoughts in my head and put them to music… I\u2019ve written a lot of songs in my life. I\u2019ve changed perspective of the songwriter and that voice. My last record, a lot of it was stream-of-consciousness and my perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this record, there are more narratives \u2013 fictional or non-fictional characters,\u201d Mangan continues. \u201cWe [me and my band] spend a lot of time on the road, and we meet a ton of people \u2013 gas station attendants in the middle of nowhere, for example. You stop, top up the tank, buy a cup of coffee, and you look at someone and you think, \u2018What is your life like?\u2019 It\u2019s got to be very different from mine. Having spent the last few years travelling around the world, it\u2019s inspiring. It reminds you how different everyone is.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Mangan feels the new record is the \u201cmost honest representation of my thoughts and the noises in my head,\u201d the cut he’s most proud of is \u201cJeopardy.\u201d The song starts off very personally and then branches into broader territory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very healthy thing to get vulnerable sometimes,\u201d Mangan explains. \u201cOne of the lines in that song I am most proud of is: \u2018What happens if all flags burn together?\u2019 It\u2019s this idea that everybody has this age-old one-up on each other, looking at each other and seeing where they stand in the structure. If I burn my flag and you don\u2019t burn yours, it\u2019s sort of like I\u2019ve gotten vulnerable and you haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to get vulnerable,\u201d he adds. \u201cBut what if we all burn the flags at the same time and just go back to zero? Maybe that\u2019s unity… Maybe that\u2019s letting go and all being vulnerable together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Indie breakthrough provides a little perspective<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-non-categorise"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uat.socan.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}