Journal Entry #5

Brandi Carlile’s memoir Broken Horses is a beautifully written story of perseverance, love, and music, following Carlile from her childhood growing up as a lesbian in a low-income family to her young adulthood spent bussing across the States in pursuit of her music career. We watch her find amazing musical success and fall in love with the woman who would become her wife and mother of their two kids. Her story was fun, devastating, exciting, stressful, and overall enthralling – not to mention, deeply inspirational and an excellent demonstration of feminist writing.

Carlile has faced sexism and homophobia throughout her life, personally and professionally. One of the most prominent examples was when she decided as a teenager to be baptized, as her siblings had been. The pastor refused when she would not renounce homosexuality, something that had a lasting impact on her life. However, the public of her town was outraged and stood up for her in a move that deeply shocked and impacted her (Carlile 85-86). Despite the structural barriers against her – gender, sexuality, class – she went on and perused her dream, writing and performing her music and relying on her support system all the while.

That support system grew in 2012 when she married Catherine Shepherd, a woman from Britain. However, because same-sex marriage was not legalized in the U.S. yet and wouldn’t be for multiple years, it was difficult – both in the sense of Shepherd’s immigration being made complicated by not being able to say they were wed, and emotionally, for the mental toll of their love being illegal was a big one. “A U.S. marriage ban is very unromantic, and it makes you feel like you have no future when you’ve fallen in love” (Carlile 165). The memoir goes on to explore Carlile’s transition to motherhood, a story that is rarely told from a lesbian perspective. Many parenting classes they took while Shepherd was pregnant were frustrating due to their heteronormativity. This made Carlile feel isolated from motherhood, but eventually, they found a coach who could guide them in an inclusive manner. Carlile’s song “The Mother” is dedicated to this experience (Carlile 181-183).

Brandi Carlile is deeply feminist and has taken feminist action throughout her life and career. It was evident as Carlile moved through the musical world that the voices of female singers were not being heard as they deserved, either by being ignored or even outright ridiculed. At one point, she worked with Tanya Tucker, horrified at the double standard of how some male musicians who were drug addicts and even criminals had music that was revered, “yet Tanya Tucker is considered ‘finished’ in the world of country music. She’s held permanently accountable for her addictions and her past shenanigans” (Carlile 267). Carlile worked with Tucker, now in her sixties, encouraging her to reenter the musical scene and helping with songwriting. Carlile “heard countless times that no one would be willing to give Tanya a second chance” (Carlile 269). Tucker’s album “While I’m Livin’” won the Grammy award for Best Country album in 2019, proving them all wrong.

Another project that Carlile took on was the musical group The Highwomen. She began work with Amanda Shires to “assemble an all-female country/Americana supergroup for a while to address the disparity pertaining to women in the roots genre” (Carlile 281). In July of 2019, the Highwomen played at the Newport Folk Festival, the first all-female headlining set in the festival’s history, featuring Dolly Parton as a guest of honor. It couldn’t have happened without Carlile’s dedication to forming the group and planning their appearance at the event. “That day is indelible for women in music history,” Carlile wrote, and it’s not hard to understand why (Carlile 287).

Ultimately, this memoir demonstrates the power of feminist writing by describing feminist action and by, especially, telling a story that otherwise doesn’t get heard. Brandi Carlile is a woman from a low-income background who is married to a woman while raising children, and who is loud, brash, and unapologetic about herself and her music. Existing that way, in this world, is already a statement itself, but writing it down and taking control of her own narrative is immensely powerful and inspiring. As she states in the “Acknowledgements” section of her book, “Write your life. No matter how young or old. Even if you feel like you’re not interesting enough. Do it. Believe me you are. Your life is in fact twisted and beautiful and you’ll find that as you peel back the layers, the unexpected side effect is that it feels wonderful to be known. Even if it’s just by you” (Carlile 307-308). Broken Horses is a powerful story that demonstrates how being oneself can be the very thing that pushes another to do the same in radical, society-bending ways.

Works Cited

Carlile, Brandi. Broken Horses. Crown Publishing Group, 2021.