Jewel has come a long way. She scored her first record deal while she was homeless and living in her volkswagen bus. Before whe was 21 years old, with only a guitar and voice she asked the world the question "Who Will Save Your Soul."
After a three year period between records, Jewel is back with another new album called "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland," which hits stores Tuesday. This will be a more folsky offering, similar to her first album called "Pieces of You."
When asked in a recent interview about what she had been up to during the last three years, her response was:
"If you're not in the public eye everybody thinks you're just lying on a lounge chair. I didn't travel as much, which was really nice. And I actually let go of my acting career. I used to think art was the only goal in life, that everything in life was supposed to fuel art. And I was really merciless about it. About five years ago I started thinking I don't want to die unhappy. I don't want to worship just the god of art. I don't want to look back on my life and go, 'Ooh, 25 million sold.' I've spent a lot of time just trying to keep a balance."
This is a refreshing, but growing theme among numerous people who are looking at life as more than work, even if it is creative work. Hearing the balanced things that she's saying, I really want to hear what her new album is offering from someone that is remembering her roots and learning experiences.
She added that part of what she wanted to explore on this record "... I really tried to explore on this record, is we're told a lot of fairy tales as children, things you're taught to believe in that you might reevaluate when you get older. From a young age I felt like I was faced with this decision: Does the cruelty and poverty of life make you bitter, and how can you resist it? A lot of my music has dealt with that since the beginning of my career and this record has really made a point of it. So it isn't that I found the music business disillusioning or not disillusioning. It's just at some point you become very willing to let go of any lies and any fairy tales in exchange for the truth."
She has indeed come a long way.
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