For the past 30 years, singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash has used her guitar and her powerful, plaintive voice to connect with her audience’s most basic emotions — love, heartache, pride, despair and redemption. The 55-year-old daughter of country legend Johnny Cash has looked back on the life that has inspired her music and this week will publish “Composed: A Memoir.” She will be in Washington on Wednesday at 7 p.m. to read from her book and give a talk at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue. (Tickets available for $10 at politics-prose.com.) She shared with The Washington Examiner by e-mail her thoughts on faith, loss, and the source of her art.
Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
I don’t consider myself to be of specific faith, but I have respect for all faiths. I sometimes envy those with a specific faith — I am just not wired that way. I am comfortable with questions, with mystery, and with the knowledge that if there is an infinite intelligence, that my mind is too limited to understand it, him or her, and I take solace in that. I am a bit of a science geek, and I find so much mystery and beauty in physics, particularly quantum physics, that I think there is an expression of God in the vastness of the universe and how it is ordered. I also find art and music to be very trustworthy expressions of God, and an infinite creative intelligence.
Did anyone or any event especially influence your faith or your path in life? How so?
I lost a baby in 1995, and that was a turning point in my life. I think before then I thought I was special, that nothing truly bad would ever happen to me, and I had a sense of entitlement about that. When I suffered that loss, I saw that everyone — everyone — has a loss, a tragedy, a deep regret, or a sadness in their life, and if they didn’t, they would. It’s inevitable. I made a choice not to become bitter about my loss, but to try to let it open my heart, or, as Wordsworth said, to let my sorrow carve a place for my joy. I saw the integrity that was possible: to be kind and compassionate, without blame or bitterness, and to not inflict my feelings on others. I have worked at this, and try to keep it always in my mind, that my particular pain and loss is not special, and in fact is what connects me to everyone else.
Through your music, and now your memoir, “Composed,” you’ve shared intimate details of your life and your emotions. It’s safe to say that most of us are terrified by that prospect. What within you either compels you to such disclosures, or gives you the confidence to go through life aware of all you’ve shared?
I believe that the very personal is universal. Even though I’ve had unusual experiences, the feelings weren’t unusual. Coming of age and all its insecurities, loss, fear, the complicated relationships with one’s parents, maturation and motherhood — those are all things we all share, and I thought my feelings and development couldn’t possibly be that different. To write about it is to connect.
Most people of faith would agree that God exists regardless of human worship — regardless of our music, our words, our practices. That said, how do music, songwriting and performing affect or inspire your beliefs?
I think the source of art and music is God. That creative vastness is also the source of love and intelligence, and I don’t know if it has a specific name, or a countenance, but I can feel myself a part of it sometimes, and that’s wonderful. I don’t believe God is a person or has opinions, or likes one country or religion better than another. If that were the case, God would be more small-minded than a lot of human beings, and I don’t think that could possibly be the case!
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
I believe in art and music, because they are dependent not only on talent and skill, but on a muse — an indefinable source that expands and inspires. And I believe in the inspiration and intelligence of small children. They are pure — pure creativity, pure instinct. They are such wonderful guides for how to live an authentic life.
– Leah Fabel
