Mary Bue feels deeply, and the latest singles from her upcoming album The Wildness of Living and Dying captivate listeners with their intensity and emotional purity. These songs aren’t just acts of self-expression: they achieve the rare feat of becoming portals directly into another person’s soul. Bue has a lot of practice getting in tune with her feelings — in addition to music, she is also a yogi and retreat leader. The Wildness of Living and Dying (out February 7) reckons with interpersonal trauma and facing the fears of the conflicts we all find ourselves wrapped up in in this climate. This will surely be a valuable album to turn to in the years to come.
For now, Bue discusses the events that led to the album and how she finds gratitude for the abundance around her.
Who are some of your musical influences?
My first 2 CDs were Toni Braxton (Self-Titled) and The Cranberries Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? In Junior High I loved The Beatles, The Supremes, En Vogue. At 14 my mind blew open discovering Tori Amos (I’m a pianist so she hit me deep), Ani DiFranco, Jeff Buckley, Luscious Jackson (Thanks Candace). Was a big raver in high school and Daft Punk was at my first rave before they exploded with Homework. I still love dancing to house and trance. College expanded the vision even more when a friend told me “all you listen to is depressing white people music” (which offended me at first however was most definitely true). She gifted me Angelique Kidjo, Susheela Raman, as well as (in the same aforementioned vein), Joni Mitchell’s gorgeous “Blue” (Thanks, Kerry).
These days my favorite band is Metric, still loving melancholy vibes with electronic beats like Phantogram, Chvrches, Twin Shadow, Poliça, Sylvan Esso. I’m currently in love with Anoushka Shankar and Ravi Shankar, having dabbled in sitar lessons while studying the yoga of sound (Nada Yoga) in India back in 2020.
Does your album have an overarching theme?
The Wildness of Living & Dying is an album gratefully dedicated to the wild spiral that is healing from trauma, both personal and collective. The songs arrived in shock waves surrounding a violent carjacking experience I had in November 2020 amidst the collective trauma of the global pandemic, and uprisings worldwide crying for change, revolution, justice, and witness.
Two teenage girls were in the middle of my street as I was pulling into my driveway, and were seemingly distressed. They asked for a ride and when I eventually agreed, they turned on me and tried to steal my Jeep, resulting in a struggle that led us to crash headfirst into my neighbor’s garage. They got away and ran as I sat in shock, honestly surprised we weren’t dead.
Trauma can place a dark veil around our inner light. It can weaken our boundaries. The dimness can open the door to other sorrows: abusive relationship. Confusion. Depression. I experienced these sorrows in this time and the songs dropped in rather cathartically. They speak to the preciousness of life, and the fleetingness. How one never knows what a day will bring – and it may be shocking. The last song and latest single “Bedding Down with the Deer” sings about how it would feel safer to leap with the deer in their forest instead of my own bed, instead of being stuck inside of my own head. This song implores us to hold space for those experiencing the shockwaves of trauma and grief, how I wish these states could be held.
Tell us about the first song you wrote.
When I was 16 I wrote a song called “Full Inside” on the piano. A lilting, descending melody. The words point to a sensitivity and insecurity that has been a troubled friend of mine all of my life, some days her sweet sad sack voice grumbling louder than others.
“diminished happiness
extinguished and repressed
holding back, i’m pressured into this mask
rip me out, i’m delicate
hold me up to the light, i’m intricate
but i don’t care to be studied
i don’t need to be pried,
I want to be full inside …”
Always felt like an outsider, socially awkward, later to find out that I’m a highly sensitive person, empath, and just this year was diagnosed with ADHD with rejection sensitive dysphoria. School days were not easy in small town Minnesota! Felt pretty misunderstood. Also had a pretty intense car accident at 16 that sent me into a depression and existential dilemma. What is my purpose? Why am I still alive? Heavy duty teenage moments. Was so grateful for my headphones, art class, and weirdo friends who loved music, poetry, and all things alternative, grunge, 90’s.
How are you using your platform to support marginalized people?
As previously mentioned, my upcoming release revolves around that violent carjacking incident by two teenage girls outside of my home. The atmosphere in south Minneapolis at the time was isolation, relative shutdown for Covid 19, and only a few months after the murder of George Floyd. Amidst the PTSD from this carjacking, deep down I had been reckoning with the systemic oppression within our city and the United States. How this oppression creates a culture that breeds separation, violence, misunderstanding, hatred. Before this incident and to this day, taking a good hard look at my part in this system.
I wondered many things about the carjacking: if the girls were in a gang, were just pissed in general, were simply being reckless teenagers, were acting out their rage at the system, at white supremacy, raging at me and my privilege, potentially a combination of all of the above and more. Of course I am angry and sad that they manipulated me, however my heart aches for them and ultimately I hope they are safe, healthy, and their lives are full of good community, education, and ART.
A long way to answer this question ~ over the years to follow, I pursued opportunities to work with youth and got to co-host a music-art-yoga retreat that was free to at-risk teenage girls in Duluth, MN through the Music Resource Action Center, an organization which offers free music lessons and coaching to 6-12 grade students. This past summer, organized a fundraiser to bring awareness to Minneapolis’ East Side Neighborhood Services which provides free art therapy to youth in the community. I will continue to highlight these organizations as it is so important for youth to have access to arts and music – it was life changing for me … and maybe with art as an outlet, the energy can be channeled in healing, transformative way.
Previously, I worked as a music director / booking agent / ran sound at a small folk venue in Duluth, MN and helped to build a wheelchair ramp to make the stage accessible to handicapped musicians (specifically at the time Gaelynn Lea, who has gone on to score music for MacBeth on Broadway, co-written with Michael Stipe, and so much more – she’s amazing!!).
Also used to own a small yoga studio in Minneapolis (2016-2019) and we would host monthly “Plant-based Yoga” fundraising events + community potlucks, raising funds for compassionate organizations ~ for sexual assault advocacy + shelters, animal shelters, victims + survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Loveland Foundation’s therapy fund for Black women & girls, whatever issues were calling to our hearts at the time.
I have written songs reflecting on being sexual assaulted in my twenties and have raised funds for Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault (PAVSA) in Duluth, MN, and contributed to a compilation from #MeTooMpls which continues to raise funds for Planned Parenthood MN. So grateful to have been awarded Community Ally of the Year in 2017 from PAVSA with these efforts, raising awareness and support for survivors.
There is SO much more to do and alongside this album I hope to bring awareness + support to arts organizations for youth + resources for therapy, fight for survivors of sexual assault (and against the culture that breeds it), and continue to have conversations with my (white) community about allyship and the detrimental systems we are swimming in, our part in it, how we can be of service.
Have you ever been given something remarkable by a fan?
One of the times I lived in Duluth, A young fan/friend, Curren Effinger, was attending school to become a Luthier. He made me a semi-hollow build guitar. It is a work of art, and I teared up upon receiving it. The headstock veneer is purpleheart wood with his gorgeous logo inlay. Curren was such a talented and driven musician when I knew him – watched him come up through the programming at the Music Resource Action Center, and always proud to book him at the little folk venue I managed. I haven’t seen him in years, and a web search just showed that he is a Production Supervisor at Gibson in Nashville and I couldn’t be more stoked. That guitar is truly remarkable, made with love and care, and it’s inspiring me to go play right now.
Also! Portraits!
My friend Annmarie Geniusz made a seed art portrait of me and it was in the Minnesota State Fair art show!
And fine artist + head of art department at College of St. Scholastica Sarah Brokke has painted my portrait, beautiful, with butterflies. I am so blessed.
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