Mirrors captures Lynn Jackson at her most raw, resonant, and real
With her new album Mirrors, Kitchener, Ontario singer/songwriter Lynn Jackson delivers her most personal and musically diverse work yet. Written in the wake of a life-altering family revelation, the songs unfold like flashes of memory — charting youth, struggles, and self-discovery with both haunting string arrangements and raw, live-off-the-floor rock.
Now 12 albums into a prolific career that has seen collaborations with Cowboy Junkies’ Michael Timmins and Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake, Jackson has built a reputation for confessional songwriting of quiet power. Mirrors may be her most cathartic statement to date — a record that reflects not only her own journey, but the universal act of facing who we were and who we’ve become.
Get the album on Bandcamp OR Apple Music.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
I am a singer-songwriter from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada and I’ve been writing and performing my own music for more than 25 years. This is my 13th album of original music. Several of my earlier albums have been labelled as more in the roots-folk genre, possibly because many songs were written on the acoustic guitar and featured violin, pedal steel, banjo etc.. . . I put out a rock album in 2018 with my side project Shipwreck Radios. This new album sees me again writing the entire album on electric guitar with effects pedals and the like, backed on several songs by a full rock band. For some albums I worked with producers other than myself (Micheal Timmins, Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub,Scotland), Bob Egan (formerly of Blue Rodeo, Wilco) I’ve toured Canada regularly over the years.
Mirrors is described as your most personal and musically diverse album yet. What made you feel ready to create such an unfiltered record at this point in your career?
I never set out to write an album. I just write songs as they come to me, and then when I have enough for an album, I collect them up and record them. Usually any themes of the project reveal themselves as the album recording is wrapping up. After I released I Am Only the Moon in March 2022, I was consciously taking a break from writing songs. I’d been releasing albums every year or two years since 2004. I was giving myself time.
And then during a visit to a relative in late 2023, I was told the person i grew up thinking was my father, wasn’t. It sounds odd, but it just came up in a run of the mill conversation about family and then there it was. I didn’t know what to do with it. I’ve been estranged from my mother since early 2022 and the person i thought was my father died in 1994 and i didn’t know him that well because he wasn’t around — i had only met him a couple times, once when i was young and once when i was a teenager. I tried to not think about this new revelation from my relative during the holiday visit, but then my mind kept going back to my childhood, an only kid growing up with my mother and without a father, and then by age 13 having a stepfather and what my homelife was like, which was fairly tumultuous. Different memories were cropping up, along with old feeling and new feelings. Throughout my life, when I’m trying to get a handle on things that are going on around me, I write.
I write lyrics or scribble thoughts down and then they in turn end up forming full songs where i write music to those words. Several songs on the new album were written in this context and I decided to be more open about these personal things than I ever have before in my life. To not shy away from talking about these things (as i have done in the past) and allow myself to be more open and revealing as a sort of cathartic experience.
You’ve said many songs came from “flashes” of memories from your formative years. Was revisiting those moments healing, difficult, or maybe both?
Revisiting my formative years at home as a young kid into my teen years is often difficult. My mother was volatile – often angry or quick to anger regularly. You could never be sure what was going to set her off and often the reasons didn’t make sense. A lot of the time was spent trying not to accidentally provoke her. There were sporadic incidents of violence – arguments or physical fighting — and this includes sometimes also when relatives would visit or when visiting relatives.
At a certain point growing up, you start to realize these things aren’t normal – but you don’t talk about this stuff with your friends because you notice these things don’t happen when you’re visit their houses. Or at least, other kids didn’t seem to talk about similar stuff going on. Then at some point you feel that if you talk about these things publicly, it’s going to reflect poorly on you. But when you’re a kid, you have no control over these things happening around you. So part of finally after all these years being more open in my songs about these things is to recognize that this fighting and violence wasn’t something i created. It was the situation I was living in. In the last couple of years, I’ve been more open talking about these times and writing about them on this new album. It’s been a bit freeing – to acknowledge what was happening and events that continued to happen into young adulthood when i would sometimes visit home – that these things were always beyond my control, and not my fault.
On it’s face, it sounds logical, but after decades, bringing things out into the light and seeing these situations for what they actually were, it starts you on a path toward healing, if that makes sense.
You worked with Alison Corbett and Nick Storring on the string parts — what did they bring to the emotional weight of the record?
I knew I had a few songs that were slower that I didn’t want to have drums, bass and lead guitar on. I wanted to experiment with the basis of the songs being my electric guitar part and vocals and then experiment with violin and cello.
I used to play violin when i was young – I’d play for hours and lose myself in the sound. It’s such a gorgeous instrument – I really have a fondness for strings – and I don’t use them enough !
In the song I Was, i could hear how the violin part should sound right when I wrote it. I can’t explain why this happens but when I write the guitar and vocal lines to many songs, I hear right away other specific instrumental parts. Sometimes it’s just hearing that ‘oh a violin would sound great on this’ and other times i hear specific parts. Sections of I Was I sang the violin parts to Ally and she, of course being a brilliant player, picked up on what i was doing right away. On Song that Plays Itself Over Again i let her do whatever she wanted – and it just sounds fantastic. She did 2 takes in the studio and i picked one. She’s just very musical and intuitive and I always know she’s going to play something great that suits the song.
With Nick, he lives in Toronto – and I’ve worked with him in the past – where I email him the bare bones of the song (my guitar and vocals) and give him an idea of the ‘vibe’ or direction I’m thinking of, then he sends his parts back. He is also very intuitive and an excellent player who likes diverse music. This time around though, when I sent him Gas Station to Nowhere, I was floored – he sent back 8 separate cello tracks – he had done a full arrangement ! My jaw hit the floor when I first heard it. And then I started smiling and couldn’t stop.
I gave him very minuimal direction and he came up with something just brilliant with many moving parts that work together in an astounding way.
Covering Sinead O’Connor’s “Troy” and Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage” is bold. Why those songs, and how did you want to reimagine them?
Troy is my favourite song in the entire world. I’ve always wanted to cover it. I’ve loved it since the first time I ever heard it. But it’s Sinead – and no one is ever going to sound like her – that emotion and that power in her voice. I was a bit afraid of covering her. Over the years I did a few songs. And then she died in summer 2023 and she was only in her mid-50s. When I heard the news, I felt it physically. It was gut wrenching. Her music helped me through some dark times and she most definitely has been a big influence on me.
Sinead died a few days before I was playing a big festival with a full band. And we had a final rehearsal that night. And I had us add The Emperor’s New Clothes as our finale song for the festival. And we did it ! People were up dancing and celebrating her song. Her passing made it even more pressing to me that I needed to pay tribute to her on an official recording. I chose my favourite song and I really prepared vocally to deliver my best version of her song. I listened to the original closely and noticed that her vocals are doubled part way into it, so I did the same. It’s a cool effect. And i kept the arrangement stripped down, with just my electric guitar, vocals and Ally on violin. I think with a powerful song like that, less is more. I’m pleased with how it turned out and I hope that she would’ve been too had she ever had a chance to hear it.
And Rusty Cage. . . . I’ve also loved that song from the first time i heard it. The idea of breaking free from someone’s rusty cage, someone’s trying to hold you back, hold you down — and also, Chris Cornell’s voice – it’s one of my favourites. I knew I couldn’t compete with his voice, but I love the song and wanted to cover it. So after some trial and error, I came up with basically talk-singing the lines – which makes them sound even more sinister i think. And then layering higher and lower vocals so they’re still quiet but they sound big. I’ve been covering this song for years, doing my version – with the rhythm guitar picking part and singing. And then I had my good friend Joe play lead guitar on it. I was looking for a specific ‘rip your face off’ lead part that demands attention. Again there was some trial and error. . . I sent Joe some specific song ideas of what I was looking for in the lead part – and when he got – man did he just really nail it ! Every time i hear his guitar part, I have a huge grin on my face. Again – it’s a tribute to a songwriter I love who I’ve been listening for years. A tribute to him was overdue.
You’ve released 12 albums since 2004 — what feels different about this one compared to your earlier work?
With the subject matter being so personal and then turning up the volume and adding a full band on several songs. . . it’s just felt these little explosions ! Raising your voice up to talk about things you’ve been mostly silent about for years. . . and then . . . have the full band kick in ! It was a rush for sure. The songs came together really well with the band in rehearsals and they feel powerful to me. But also, if you just want to rock out and not think about the subject matter too hard, you can do that too. I like that about these songs.
I spent a while getting the sequence right. To have the rock songs and then interspersed throughout the album are these slower, songs with pretty sounding strings. The album is a musical journey. I know lots of people these days tend to buy ‘singles’ but my hope is that there are enough people who like the album experience that they’ll listen to the whole thing from start to finish. Maybe they’ll put it on while their making dinner or working on a project. I love the idea of people listening to the whole thing in order.
If a listener could only hear one track from Mirrors to understand who you are as an artist, which would it be — and why?
Oh i most definitely can’t just choose one – especially with this album. The songs go from straight ahead rock to emotionally-charged ballads to the fragility of Sinead’s Troy, to the heaviness of Little Empire and Rusty Cage. All of those songs reflect who I am as a songwriter – I love the heavy and the rock and the simple unadorned ballads and experimentation. Take all those sides together and you get a true reflection of what I like and what moves me as a songwriter.