Sarah McLachlan Makes NPR Tiny Desk Debut With Stripped-Back Set Covering Her Whole Career
The beloved Canadian singer-songwriter performed five songs from her discography, including “Building A Mystery,” “Reminds Me” and “Angel.”
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah McLachlan has made her NPR Tiny Desk debut.
The Canadian singer-songwriter showed how expressive she can be during her five-song set at the popular performance series.
McLachlan kicks off her set with an acoustic rendition of her classic “Building A Mystery,” giving the Lilith Fair documentary's namesake an almost-country-folk sound. As McLachlan’s gentle voice soars throughout the song, she captures the audience’s attention from the first guitar strum. The 1997 track struck a chord on the Billboard Hot 100, spending 22 weeks on the ranking and peaking at No. 13.
She graciously thanks the audience before introducing herself and her band, Hamilton husband-wife duo Luke Doucet (guitar) and Melissa McClelland (bass) of the duo Whitehorse — both of whom are longtime collaborators of McLachlan and provide background vocals during the set. “These guys have been with me forever," she says.
"We're super happy to be here. Thought we'd do a cross-section of old stuff and new stuff," McLachlan continues, before introducing “Reminds Me,” a love song from her tenth studio album, Better Broken, released last September. The record spent one week on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart, debuting at No. 28.
Originally, “Reminds Me” is a duet with MUNA singer Katie Gavin, but McLachlan holds her own on the solo version.
“During COVID I watched a lot of TV, as I'm sure a lot of us did, and I went down the Yellowstone rabbit hole and kind of fell in love with that country, cowboy music stuff," she reveals. "My sweetie's birthday was coming up so I thought I'm gonna try to write him a love song and set a dangerous precedent for myself."
After playing “Only Human," she expresses the need to focus on performing amongst the colourful knick-knacks lining the shelves in the background of the performance series. "I cannot look at this stuff when I'm playing, I'm so ADD," the artist told the audience. "I look up, and I'm just like, 'Oh, shiny things!' So distracting."
Closing out her set, McLachlan plays piano versions of some of her biggest hits from 1997’s Surfacing, including “Adia” and “Angel.” The tracks peaked at No. 3 and No. 4, respectively, on the Hot 100, while Surfacing hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
Canadian artists have been faring well on the popular concert series of late. Earlier this year, Daniel Caesar made his grand return after eight years, while The Beaches scored their Tiny Desk debut last October.
Watch McLachlan’s full Tiny Desk concert below:
