Work Text:
[SOUND: steady tape hiss; radiator ticking; a chair leg scrapes; faint traffic outside; someone downstairs laughs once, then it’s gone]
ALAN LOMAX: All right. We are rolling.
[unintelligible — likely engineer acknowledging]
ALAN LOMAX: Jennifer Fischer-Scott.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir.
ALAN LOMAX: We are sitting in a room where the floorboards have opinions.
JENNIFER: (a small laugh) They do. They are honest boards.
ALAN LOMAX: I want to start in a wide-open way. When you walk out and you sing, what are you doing.
JENNIFER: (pause) I am trying to be present without making a show of myself being present. I know that sounds like a puzzle, and I do not mean it to. I mean that, when I am doing it right, the song is what steps forward. I am just the thing that lets it move through the room.
ALAN LOMAX: That is already a different answer than most singers give. What tells you you are doing it right.
JENNIFER: The room changes its breathing. I do not mean that in a mystical way. People come in carrying the day on their shoulders, and they sit with their jaw tight. And then, if the song is meeting them where they are, that tightness loosens. There is a little settling. Not sleep. Just settling.
ALAN LOMAX: You are listening for it.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir. Listening and feeling. I do not think it is only ears. People think singing is about voice, but it is about the whole body and the whole room. If I ignore the room, I start performing at it, and then everything becomes sharp.
ALAN LOMAX: Sharp is a word you use more than once. Sharp how.
JENNIFER: Sharp like a knife, but also sharp like a bright light. A bright light can be good. A knife can be useful. But a bright light can also turn a person into a thing to be inspected, and a knife can turn a room into a contest. I do not want a contest.
ALAN LOMAX: You do not do banter. You do not do introductions. Some folks might say you refuse the audience.
JENNIFER: I do not refuse them. I respect them too much to try to steer them. If I tell people what a song is supposed to mean before I sing it, I take away their own mind. I also take away the song’s own way of landing. There are nights when the same song goes to different places. It depends on who is sitting there and what they are carrying.
ALAN LOMAX: So you do not want to put a handle on it.
JENNIFER: A handle becomes something a person can grab. Sometimes the person grabbing is kind. Sometimes they are not. I am not accusing anyone in particular. I am just saying I have seen it happen. I would rather offer the song like water than like merchandise.
ALAN LOMAX: Like water.
JENNIFER: Like water. Plain. Necessary. Not a performance for its own sake.
ALAN LOMAX: You have been described in print as having a kind of calm, a “zen” feeling, that you are not exerting yourself, that it simply flows. That is the language they use. What do you make of that.
JENNIFER: I appreciate that they did not say I was lazy. (a small, polite laugh) I think, sometimes, people confuse effort with strain. Singing is effort. I am working. I am paying attention. But I try not to strain, because strain is what happens when I am pushing the song to be something it is not. If I am straining, it means I am making it about me.
ALAN LOMAX: That is a discipline.
JENNIFER: It is practice. I am not naturally disciplined. I am just stubborn about keeping the song from turning into a speech.
[SOUND: Jennifer shifts in her chair; a faint click like a ring touching wood]
ALAN LOMAX: Let me ask about something people absolutely notice before they hear a word. You sing barefoot.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir.
ALAN LOMAX: Why.
JENNIFER: The shortest answer is that it helps me tell the truth. The longer answer is that shoes put me up in my head. They make me feel separate from the room. When my feet are bare, I can feel where I am. I can feel if the floor is cold or warm. I can feel if the boards are uneven. I can feel my weight shift when I am nervous. That tells me things before my mind wants to make a story about it.
ALAN LOMAX: You can feel the room through the floor.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir. Not in a magical way. Wood carries vibration. People think they are quiet, but a room is always talking. A foot tapping, a chair moving, someone crossing their legs, somebody who cannot settle. It comes up through the boards. When I am barefoot, I pick that up, and then I do not have to stare at people to figure out what is happening.
ALAN LOMAX: So it keeps you from performing the looking.
JENNIFER: That is exactly it. If I look too much, people start looking back, and then it turns into a mirror game. I want people to stop watching my face for instructions. I want them to listen.
ALAN LOMAX: Does barefoot ever become its own spectacle.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir. Sometimes it does, and that is when I keep my shoes on. I do not enjoy that, because it feels like putting a lid on something that breathes better without it. But I would rather wear shoes than have a room spend the whole night talking about my feet like that is the story.
ALAN LOMAX: When did you start doing it.
JENNIFER: Not at the beginning. I started because I was tired. I was doing too much in too many places where the whole business was appearance. I had been helping in a kitchen all day one afternoon, and I did not want to dress myself up and turn into a product for the night. I stepped out in my socks, and then I stepped out without them, and the song felt like it did not have to fight its way through me. That is the simplest way I can say it.
ALAN LOMAX: Less costume.
JENNIFER: Less costume. More honest.
ALAN LOMAX: Now, another visual choice that people notice, and it is small but it changes the whole shape of you in a room. Sometimes you tie your hair up. Sometimes you let it down. What decides that.
JENNIFER: Practical things first. If it is hot, I put it up. If I am sweating, hair on the neck becomes one more little irritation, and irritation turns into strain. I do not want strain. That is practical.
ALAN LOMAX: And beyond practical.
JENNIFER: Beyond practical, it is about how available I want to be. I say that politely, but I mean it. There are rooms where people come to listen, and there are rooms where some people come to take. Not everybody. I do not want to paint a whole room as bad. But there are nights where the eyes are sharp.
ALAN LOMAX: Sharp again.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir. There are eyes that are kind, and there are eyes that are hungry. If my hair is down, it is a curtain. It helps me keep my own space. People do not get as much of my face. They get the sound. That feels safer when I need safety.
ALAN LOMAX: Hair down is protection.
JENNIFER: It can be. Hair up is different. Hair up is when I want the song to be clean and direct. When it is up, I feel like my spine can line up. I feel the back of my head. I know that sounds funny. But when a person sings, the whole body is part of the instrument, and if something is tugging, or whispering, or falling into the eyes, it pulls you out of the song.
ALAN LOMAX: So hair up is clarity.
JENNIFER: Clarity and intention. I also think hair up tells the room I am working. I am not decorating myself. I am doing my job.
ALAN LOMAX: Your job.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir. People forget singing is labor. They treat it like a favor they purchased. I do not want to be ungrateful. I am grateful for any room that holds still and listens. But I do not kneel for it.
[SOUND: a soft sound from downstairs, then a door closes; quiet returns]
ALAN LOMAX: Let us talk about Nicola and Bart. People talk about them like bandmates.
JENNIFER: (pause) They were not accessories. They were family.
ALAN LOMAX: How did they become part of the evenings.
JENNIFER: The honest answer is that they came everywhere with me. If I went out, they went out, because that is what life was. And then, one night, I realized the room was different when they were there. It was not a stage anymore. It was a room with a dog in it, which sounds simple, but it changes a person’s posture.
ALAN LOMAX: In what way.
JENNIFER: People cannot pretend they are in a cathedral when a dog is sniffing their shoes. People cannot keep up a mask as easily. Some people soften. They smile without thinking. They remember they have a body. They remember they can be gentle without being stupid.
ALAN LOMAX: And if they did not soften.
JENNIFER: Then I learned something. Some people get meaner when they feel themselves softening, because it embarrasses them. They resent an animal for making them feel anything. That is not the animal’s fault. That is a person wrestling with their own heart.
ALAN LOMAX: Describe Nicola for me.
JENNIFER: Nicola was steady. She did not ask permission to be what she was. She would walk into a place and stand still and look at people like she was measuring whether the room could be trusted. She did not bark much. She did not fuss. She just watched, and her watching made me calmer.
ALAN LOMAX: And Bart.
JENNIFER: Bart wanted everyone to be friends immediately. He believed, in his dog way, that affection was the natural state of the world. He would lean on your knee like you had known him forever. People laughed at that. Sometimes that laughter was the first honest sound a person made all week.
ALAN LOMAX: Nicola and Bart died in nineteen sixty-one.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir.
ALAN LOMAX: People might assume seven years would make it easier to speak about.
JENNIFER: It is easier to speak about than it was. It is not easier to carry. I still hear her tag sometimes. It is a foolish thing to say, because it is not there. But a house remembers. The mind remembers a small sound the way it remembers a door creak.
ALAN LOMAX: Did you stop performing after they died.
JENNIFER: I stopped going places. I did not stop singing entirely, but I stopped walking into rooms that felt uncertain. With them, I was not alone. That is what I mean. People say, “But you had an audience.” An audience is a sea. Sometimes the sea is calm. Sometimes it is rough. Nicola was a shore. Bart was a hand on your sleeve. Their presence meant I did not have to brace myself so hard.
ALAN LOMAX: You are describing an animal as a kind of moral force.
JENNIFER: They did not lecture anyone. They just existed. They stood between a cruel impulse and its target sometimes without knowing they were doing it. Nicola especially. If someone was being unkind, she did not argue. She just put her body where it needed to be. A human could learn from that.
ALAN LOMAX: You learned not to explain.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir. Explaining can turn into begging. I do not beg a room to be decent.
ALAN LOMAX: Did people resent the dogs.
JENNIFER: Some did. Not many, but enough to remember. They resented losing control of the night. They wanted the kind of evening they thought they had paid for. A dog does not care what you paid. A dog does not care what you imagined you were purchasing. That upsets certain kinds of people.
ALAN LOMAX: That is a very clean statement.
JENNIFER: I do not mean it cruelly. I just mean it plainly.
[SOUND: a small thump as the microphone is adjusted]
ALAN LOMAX: Let me go back to your general philosophy. You said earlier the room has a throat. What do you listen for when you enter a space.
JENNIFER: I listen for the ceiling first. If the ceiling is low, people feel held. They are braver. If the ceiling is very high, people get floaty, and floaty can become careless. Careless can become cruel. That is not always true. I am speaking in general.
ALAN LOMAX: And the floor, of course.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir. And the door. The door matters because sometimes the song is for someone at the threshold. Someone who is not sure they are allowed to be there. A lot of people live their whole lives thinking they are not allowed in rooms. If a song makes a doorway feel like a welcome, that is worth more than applause.
ALAN LOMAX: That is a beautiful way to put it.
JENNIFER: Thank you. I mean it sincerely.
ALAN LOMAX: I am going to ask about your voice. There is a plainness to it. Not thin. Not ornamental. Just plain in the way a clear glass of water is plain. How did you arrive at that.
JENNIFER: I stopped trying to deserve being heard. When I was younger, I tried to sound older. I tried to sound tougher. I tried to sound like I had earned the right to open my mouth. That made my voice lie. Not in a moral sense. In a physical sense. It pushed it out of its natural shape.
ALAN LOMAX: And now.
JENNIFER: Now it is just my mouth, my breath, and the room. If the room is good, the voice is good. If the room is anxious, I have to work to keep the voice honest. That is the labor part.
ALAN LOMAX: Would you sing something here, in this room, with this microphone, not as a show but as an example.
JENNIFER: The tape will hear it differently than people do.
ALAN LOMAX: I know.
JENNIFER: I am not scolding you. I just want to say it out loud.
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ALAN LOMAX: That is it. That is your whole idea in two verses.
JENNIFER: (soft) Maybe. I do not like to be too certain.
ALAN LOMAX: It is not what people would call a protest song.
JENNIFER: It is a truth song.
ALAN LOMAX: What is the difference.
JENNIFER: A protest song points at something. A truth song points everywhere. A truth song can live in a kitchen and not lose its spine. I hope that makes sense.
ALAN LOMAX: It makes a great deal of sense.
JENNIFER: Thank you.
ALAN LOMAX: I want to tie this back to Nicola and Bart, because I hear them in your language. Did they respond to music.
JENNIFER: Nicola would settle. She would put her head down and breathe slow like she was guarding the sound. Bart thought choruses were a game. He would wag at the part where people joined in, and it made people laugh, and that laughter softened them. I liked that. I liked the softening. I liked anything that reminded a room it could be kind without making a big speech about kindness.
ALAN LOMAX: Did you ever write a song for them.
JENNIFER: Not on purpose. But their footsteps were in the rhythm of my life, and the rhythm got into the songs. When you live with animals, the house becomes a pattern of timings, and you do not know you are counting it until the counting stops.
ALAN LOMAX: I keep thinking about preservation. I keep thinking about keeping. Naming. Making a record.
JENNIFER: I know, and I respect it. I do. I am not against keeping. I am against grabbing. There is a difference. If keeping is a form of care, I understand it. If keeping turns a living thing into a jar on a shelf, then I get worried.
ALAN LOMAX: You are saying the performance is smoke and the fire is elsewhere.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir. Smoke tells you there was fire. But if you put smoke in a jar, you do not get heat. You do not get light. You get a jar of smoke. I am not insulting your work. I am trying to be plain about what a song is for me.
ALAN LOMAX: I appreciate the plainness. It is hard for an archivist to hear and necessary for an archivist to hear.
JENNIFER: That is kind of you to say.
ALAN LOMAX: Before we stop, a practical question. On a night you sing, what do you do before you go downstairs.
JENNIFER: I wash my hands. I do not mean it ceremonially. It is just a reset. I tie my hair up if the room is hot or if I can feel myself getting fussy. I take my shoes off if the floor is safe. And I stand still for a moment and listen to the room before I add anything to it.
ALAN LOMAX: You treat the room as something you enter, not something you conquer.
JENNIFER: Yes, sir. A room is not a thing to win. A room is a thing to share. If I cannot share it, then I should not be there.
ALAN LOMAX: All right. We will stop and turn the reel.
JENNIFER: All right. Thank you.
[SOUND: tape machine clicks off; room tone widens; downstairs, a chair scrapes; someone says something indistinct; then the sound of hands on tape boxes]
[unintelligible — likely engineer: “Got it.”]