The songwriting has an irregular memory, often celebratory, rarely analytical. “The Sisterhood 2”, the new project by Sarah Jane Morris and Tony Rémy, tries to bring order to this fragmented archive, transforming the repertoire into a story and the influences into living matter.
It is not a tribute album, nor an exercise in style: it is a work that takes a position. Eleven songs that traverse central figures of female writing, rendering them not as crystallized icons but as still operational presences, still capable of questioning the present.
The figures summoned, from Patti Smith to Sinéad O'Connor, from Amy Winehouse to Tracy Chapman, are not simple icons, but nodes of a constellation that holds together writing, identity and public responsibility.
We met Sarah and with her explored the concept of female creative sisterhood.
INTERVIEW
Let's start from afar. When I prepare an interview I like to go back to the beginning. I listened to your 1992 album “Heaven” again, and in particular “I'm a Woman”. Today, with Sisterhood II, that song almost seems like an original statement. Is there a thread that connects those two moments?
When I wrote I'm a Woman something curious happened. It was the beginning of the website era and I was building my own. Searching my name online, a site surfaced from a person claiming to be Sarah Jane Morris.
This was someone who had undertaken a gender transition journey and who, in a certain sense, was “becoming me”. She was a huge fan. We contacted her and asked her for her story.
The response was powerful: she told me she was the woman she had always hoped to become. That's when I realized that “I'm a Woman” was truly an identity statement.
Then the song had a second life as the theme to the BBC series The Men's Room, starring Bill Nighy. It became something broader, almost a manifesto.
Remaining on this theme, Sisterhood is a work that puts other women at the center: Amy Winehouse, Tracy Chapman, Patti Smith. What was the criterion in choosing? What is the thread that holds them together?
In the second chapter of Sisterhood there is no longer the idea of passing the baton between generations. I was interested in talking about women who, in different ways, touched me and inspired me.
Amy Winehouse, for example: she doesn't belong to my generation, but she was an extraordinary songwriter, with a truth all her own. I couldn't exclude it.
Sinéad O'Connor was a friend. Studying her life I discovered a complex family history, marked by a mother with serious problems. With Tony we wrote his song as a sort of Ovidian metamorphosis: mother and daughter who meet in a symbolic dimension, like two birds above a lake, capable of perceiving each other but not of healing each other.
Patti Smith is another trajectory: pure poetic inspiration. His connection to Rimbaud, to Mapplethorpe, and the way art and music become a form of spirituality. From there also came the idea that art speaks of God, beyond religion.
I tried to render each figure with respect, without ever overlapping.
Looking at Italy, which is almost a second home for you: have you ever thought of an Italian name for a possible new chapter?
Yes, I thought about it. The first person who came to me was Mina. She is an immense figure definitely a Sisterhood.
Fiorella Mannoia also strikes me a lot, for how she used her public voice. And Ornella Vanoni: a magnetic presence, waiting to be explored.In reality I have often worked with Italian musicians, from Riccardo Cocciante, Pino Daniele and Mario Biondi. Now I feel the need to delve deeper into Italian authors. There is a heritage that deserves attention.
On April 23rd you will be in concert in Rome where you will start your Italian tour. What should we expect?
Music, today more than ever, is essential. If you take it out of our lives, what's left?
I will bring these stories, these women, and the profound sense of connection that music can still create to the stage.
THE STORY TRACK BY TRACK
“Longing To Be Free” (Peggy Seeger): is a powerful feminist anthem and a biographical narrative of the events, relationships and battles of a legendary life of musical activism.
“Oh Mother My Mother” (Sinéad O'Connor): it is at once a Celtic elegy and an Ovidian dream, in which Sinéad and her mother find themselves like birds beside an imaginary lake, attempting a timeless reconciliation.
“I Can Hear Jesus Weeping” (Tracy Chapman): Melodically enchanting, it expresses a bitter indictment of the abandonment of those who most need protection: “Have mercy on us and on those who cannot hear the crying of children.”
“The Edge is Where the Magic is Found” (Amy Winehouse) is a jazz ballad that Amy herself would have loved, focusing on the young singer's artistry, delicately hinting at the tragedy of her downfall.
“Love Wit & Stardust” (Dolly Parton): pays homage to the woman who, perhaps more than anyone else, was able to communicate universal values of inclusion, generosity and moral clarity to everyone, “from Paradise to the Grand Old Opry.”
“Always Both and Never” (Joan Baez): describes the paradox whereby militant non-violence still risks deadly retaliation; the song recalls the heroism and sacrifice that coexisted with the hedonism of the sixties.
“Sweet Mama Raitt” (Bonnie Raitt): is embellished with a perfectly chiseled vocal tribute: “Your songs make me feel like I've been talking to you,” and pays particular homage to Raitt's extraordinary song about organ donation.
“Let Only Love Remain” (Joan Armatrading): is a musical tour de force that demonstrates a subtle understanding of her craft, while shrouding the enigma of her jealously guarded privacy.
“Crazy Angel” (Patti Smith): is a splendid performance poem supported with elegance, which owes much to Patti herself but which forcefully expresses its own artistic intention. In Morris's hands, Patti's art becomes a mirror of Smith's magnificence.
“Also Known as Etta James” (Etta James): is a dark and pulsating song, full of the atmosphere of danger that characterized the life of an uncompromising black artist in the America of her time.
“The Dignity of Love” (Janis Ian): A song that elegantly proclaims human love in all its diversity, it closes the album with a gloriously sustained finale of over nine minutes, leaving the listener eager to listen again.
THE TRACKLIST
THE LIVE
23 April – Rome: Auditorium Parco della Musica
8 and 9 May – Milan: Blue Note
22 May – Pesaro: Experimental Theatre
WEB & SOCIAL
https://www.sarahjanemorris.co.uk/
@sarah_jane_morris
