Mary Gauthier uses songwriting to help people through trauma
Having used songwriting to navigate her own trauma, Mary Gauthier is putting those skills to work helping others do the same.
The Nashville-based musician has collaborated with war veterans to write about what they’ve been through, even producing a disc of the music, and more recently sat with health care workers who were on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gauthier still writes for herself, and her most recent album “Dark Enough to See the Stars” reflects the love found with partner and fellow musician Jaimee Harris, and the sadness of losing friends like John Prine and Nanci Griffith.
Yet through her workshops and the book she wrote, “Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting,” Gauthier has become increasingly interested in how music can mean more than something to listen to.
“I couldn’t make sense of a lot of things in my life, and I use art to help me,” Gauthier said. “And I just had a sense that it was something that songwriters can do to help people with their own trauma.”
She began meeting with veterans groups with the help of Austin singer-songwriter Darden Smith, who has done similar work. She’ll sit with her guitar amid a group and ask them to tell their experiences. Reluctantly at first, the stories come out. Gauthier keys on a phrase or experience, and together they write a song.
“I think it changed Mary’s life,” Smith said.
“I think that Mary found a certain calling. Her first calling was to write songs and deliver her own story. Her second calling was to play it for people. Her third calling was using these skill sets to help people tell their stories,” he added.
People are often reluctant to talk about trauma because they associate it with failure, Gauthier said.
Every time she works with a group, she can sense the relief in people who recognize that what they’re feeling is not unique.
“It’s not me pulling it out of them,” she said. “It’s the song. I’m just the midwife. The song is the maestro. The song is the CEO. We make an agreement: Let’s just be honest and see where it goes.”
It’s enormously gratifying to find some way of being of service, she said.
“I know that it is helping them in a way I can’t fully articulate but I can see it in their faces,” she said. “Who wouldn’t want to do that?”