Rachael Yamagata

The Chicago singer-songwriter self-analyses her relationships, her tarot cards, and those pesky Fiona Apple comparisons

By Cole Haddon
Published: April 24th, 2005 | 4:47pm

Rachael Yamagata broke up with yet another guy only four days ago, though I can't detect a lick of melancholy in her jocular tone. For a songwriter known for her sometimes bitter, often heart-wrenching lyrics about relationship highs and (mostly) lows, there's always a smile in her voice or a light laugh interrupting her sentences. During our phone conversation, we talk almost exclusively about what people don't always get about her, her music, and the perpetually doomed love affairs that have punctuated her adult life. In fact, she's so forthcoming, I wonder if maybe she's desperate to talk to anyone. But then I realize that's just Rachael Yamagata. Deconstructing herself, through lyrics or through conversation, is her favorite pastime. Best of all, she knows how to laugh about it.

“I have a pretty idealistic vision of love, even though I write sad break-up tunes,” she explains, lighting a cigarette. At the moment, she's relaxing in a Camden, London apartment where she is preparing for a three-city tour of Europe to promote the release of her album Happenstance there. “Most people actually think I'm depressed, but I'm pretty hopeful about the whole thing and that's because I always think the whole [break up] I went through is morphing me into the more perfect partner for the more perfect person for me.”

While her relationship meltdowns can often be attributed to an affection for other musicians and those she describes as “textbook-ly unattainable,” Rachael doesn't like to wallow. Not the type to discuss her heartache over coffee with a friend or “in poetry” — the thought of which makes her snicker — she instead finds her release in the lyrics she puts to paper. “Being on the road, writing is like a muscle of sorts. Everyone asks me if I'm really that unlucky in love. I'm just fascinated by each step, by each thing that happens in relationships. A lot of my lyrics kind of portray me as the idiot, making the wrong decisions, like not seeing the forest for the trees, but I'm not afraid to be that person. People can identify with it. I just get a kick out of analyzing the pitfalls I create for myself.”

Joni Mitchell once spoke of her realization that even amongst her peers — folks like Dylan and Ronstadt — she was thought of as the sad one. Now, I'm not even going to suggest Rachael Yamagata could be the next Joni Mitchell; in fact, I think Rachael, though flattered, would cringe uncomfortably at such a comparison; but, just like Mitchell did, she feels misunderstood. Even by herself. “I did this tarot card reading once,” Rachel says. “They pulled two cards for me, my conscious and unconscious views of relationships. My conscious relationship was this card that represented that I was up for it, that I was all about partnership and totally wanted to be in something. My unconscious card was the complete opposite. It said a relationship would mean losing my freedom and that kind of thing. So the tarot reader was laughing because she pretty much thought, 'You're screwed. There aren't two more opposite things than your consciousness and unconscious self.' I don't know if it's going to be a lifelong battle or what.” She laughs again and I hear her take a hit off her cigarette. “I'd love someone to [ground me]. I just never fall for that person. I think I could. I hope I can. Otherwise, it's going to be a long road.”

If Rachael's recent break-up is any indication, that road has no foreseeable end, but, even a few days after the split, she sounds optimistic. Besides, if the weight of it all threatens to become too much, her European mini-tour and a flurry of media interviews like this one will keep her distracted. Music critics there will enjoy Happenstance as they did here in the States, just as they will undoubtedly label her as Fiona Apple-esque — a habit abused by American writers too. Considering Rachael's pianos, smoky voice, and vocal dynamics, Norah Jones will be brought up almost as frequently, I'm guessing.

The truth of the matter, however, is Rachael's music bears little similarity to Apple's or Jones's, except of course all three deal frequently with love or the absence of it in their songs and, in the case of Rachael and Apple, both zealously inhabit the role of woman scorned. Yet, whereas Apple wants to rage about it, a mouthpiece for the downtrodden woman, Rachael can admit culpability; she doesn't just play the angry blame game; and, more importantly, she wants to love and be loved in return. You hear it in the way her fingers dance across keys and pound out notes, the way she bends her emotive voice, and, if you're as lucky as me, in the pauses between her sentences.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: Rachael Yamagata is a little worn out by the endless string of failures, as you can imagine, but not in the mood for the everything-happens-for-a-reason reassurances from anyone either. “You just want to be like, 'Thanks a lot, fuck off, see you later, enjoy your happy lifestyle and I'm going to be sad for a while,” she says. It's that attitude, though, her confidence that life is mapped out and not mere, ahem, happenstance that keeps her plodding forward. Hope, whether it's blind or not, accents her every spoken thought on her life. “It's why I can still retain this Pollyanna attitude toward love. Maybe I'll be proven a fool down the line. Maybe that can be the twist of this article: 'She's become a cynic.' Something like that.”

And, of course, she laughs.

Photo by Heidi Hartwig