Mary Bue is a gifted singer-songwriter, yogi, and international retreat guide whose music delves deep into the human experience, exploring themes of love, loss, survival, and the beauty of the natural world. Her latest single, Bedding Down With The Deer, offers a poignant and ethereal glimpse into her forthcoming album, The Wildness of Living and Dying. Rooted in personal trauma and profound transformation, Mary’s work invites listeners to reflect on their own journeys of healing and resilience.
In this interview, Mary opens up about the experiences that shaped her latest project, from a violent carjacking to moments of connection with nature. She shares how music has served as both a personal sanctuary and a way to extend compassion to others navigating trauma. With rich imagery and storytelling, Mary’s songs offer a space to feel, process, and find hope. Dive into her thoughts on the transformative power of music, her deep connection to the natural world, and the enduring strength of the human spirit.
Hi Mary, welcome to News Blackbird and congratulations on the release of your new single Bedding Down With The Deer! It’s such a haunting and powerful track. What inspired the lyrics and the atmosphere of the song, and how does it connect with the broader themes of your upcoming album, The Wildness of Living and Dying?
Thank you so much for listening. This song means a lot to me. I grew up in rural Minnesota and there are many deer roaming around the forests. On hikes I always like to come across their soft padded grass beds where they rest. This song has to do with feeling unsafe in my home as I had experienced a violent carjacking incident right outside of my door and the fairy-tale wish that I could just go bed down with the deer in the forest, like Snow White or something. Midway through the song, it opens up to what I might call a prayer to humanity on how we could hold space for those moving through trauma and hard times ~ to rest, to sleep, to do our best to understand, that healing can’t be rushed.
This album circles around this traumatic incident and how my life changed, how I fell into a “trauma portal” which weakened my instincts, more vulnerable to fall prey an abusive relationship, to spiral into old habits of self doubt and destruction, but/and/also the awe of waking up every day and not knowing what will happen, and the grace & wonder within that, and gratitude to the wildness all around of – of nature, relationships, work, spiritual practice …
You’ve mentioned that Bedding Down With The Deer reflects your hope for cultivating compassion for those dealing with trauma. In your view, how does music serve as a tool for both personal healing and helping others who might be going through similar experiences?
We all probably have those songs we go to when we need to cry, rage, relax, dance, sweat it out. For times when there are no words, music is often there for us. I have had many connected listening experiences where I feel like this song (or the energy of the song) understands me! Music is a great transmitter of emotion, and like how emotions flow and change, music can flow and change. Setting a scene, building, releasing, letting go. Music is magic we can return to again and again.
There is a branch of ancient yogis who study Nada Yoga ~ transformation through the flow of sound. Sound vibration is powerful – think of sonar weapons or ultrasound technology or the current trend of sound healers with crystal singing bowls. Working with sound as a healing modality, both with lyrical poetry and the vibration itself (driving and crying the car, singing folk songs in community, chanting ancient mantras, or dancing in a club to house music) we can come into the flow – tapping into the vibration of the song’s creator, letting the song be a passageway for release, connecting with other people in the room or the choir. Music can help us feel so much less alone.
This album touches on themes like strength, vulnerability, and transformation. How did your personal experiences, particularly the carjacking in 2020, influence the songwriting process and the emotional depth of the songs on The Wildness of Living and Dying?
As previously shared, I feel like I fell into a “trauma portal” … I felt upside down much of the time. I read once that if you get caught in an avalanche and you don’t know which way is up, you should spit to see which direction the spit falls with gravity and then dig yourself out opposite of that. It felt much like that, covered in a heavy weight, slowly digging out, but still very much in danger of losing strength, of taking a wrong turn … super vulnerable. I found myself in situations with people who didn’t have my best interest in mind. Since I was super confused anyway, it was easier to take advantage of my giving + trusting nature (which is what got me in trouble in the first place). It was also the height of the pandemic and social isolation. And, I clung to hope. In the symbolic language of tarot cards, a song called “After the Disaster” came – there is a card that comes after The Tower card in the tarot, and that card is The Star. It’s like after a storm there is a clearing and the stars start shining, and there is your North Star, some sort of guiding light. And there is a peacefulness. Like how the body is flooded with endorphins after experiencing some pain. I have historically been able to write a lot about my pain. Mostly in relationship turbulence, however this was something wildly different. A pain for humanity informed my writing here. A big WHY about violence and confusion … and who can we trust? And can we trust ourselves? And I’m grateful the songs came through to ride it out with me.
You’re known for your “rich vocal storytelling.” How do you approach storytelling in your music, and what do you hope listeners will take away from the emotional journeys in your songs?
I hope, for any highly sensitive people out there, for the empaths and the sad ones, for people experiencing ptsd, depression, anxiety, heartbreak – I hope they will feel less alone. We are all feeling stuff and I’m grateful that my feelings can be transmuted in a musical way. Some things just can’t be talked out and poetry and music and art can offer symbols that hold the story. Life is so fucking complicated. I have a wildly imaginative mind, always have. Always making up stories, perhaps fairly paranoid, and sometimes to my utter detriment. I don’t write too many songs about fictitious characters ~ more about archetypal energies that may turn into a character in a song. Yeah … I hope the storytelling is connective and helps listeners feel like someone gets them.
The imagery in Bedding Down With The Deer evokes nature and a sense of peace. How does your connection to the natural world influence your songwriting and the emotional depth you bring to your music?
I grew up in the country, surrounded by forest. I loved biking out there and listening to the wind through the trees. This is often a place invoked when I’m feeling overwhelmed (even in EMDR therapy, the client is asked to find a “safe place” when the work gets intense and this forest I visited so often in my youth is one of those places). I love the animals, the flowers, the seasons, cloudscapes, storms, snow, ocean waves, flowing streams, echoing canyons, stars! These scenes make their way into the songs. Honored to be able to witness such beauty in nature.
You’ve been awarded several artist residencies, including one at the Big Cypress Nature Preserve. How have these residencies impacted your music and creative process, especially for The Wildness of Living and Dying?
Artist Residency awards have been incredible and potent parts of my journey as a songwriter. To delve into the land and the creative communities that are brought together for these experiences continues to inspire me as time flows forward. The Big Cypress Nature Preserve was kind of a scary one. The nature is so foreign and quite dangerous. Alligators, snakes, giant prehistoric birds. It was also scary as I was sexually assaulted during that one (please note that was not in conjunction to the Preserve, which is doing incredible work). So … in taking great risks and being open to adventure, sometimes there is danger. I have learned many lessons from these experiences, and of course written quite a few songs about what came from these times in residency. They are thick times of reflection and deep process. The gift of being supported and allowed to focus solely on your creative work is truly beautiful.
This is your ninth album, and it’s been quite a journey. How does The Wildness of Living and Dying represent the evolution of your music and your personal growth, both as a songwriter and an artist, compared to your earlier work?
Beautiful question – thank you. I have said before that the album prior to this one (The World is Your Lover) is a synthesis of my earlier works, combining the melancholy piano poems and grungy guitar into a pretty eclectic little collection with a fantastic new band and producer. Delving into this new album with the same wonderful band and producer has allowed a richness and a deepening. There is a sense of continuity and flow in this group of songs that feels nutritive and intuitive.
In previous albums, some of the songs were written perhaps decades ago and re-visioned alongside fresher tracks. This new album is all written from the same period of 2020-2023, so the content is continuous, and overlapping, and searching for meaning and healing from a pretty terrible time in ways beyond my trauma. A collective trauma, a recognition of SO much pain in this world. We take it out on each other. Our pain might drive us to try and steal a car from a random girl and result in crashing headfirst into a garage. Our pain might make us want to manipulate a lover and make them feel like the most horrendous piece of shit on earth. Our pain might make us murderous, might make us drink ourselves into abandon. Our pain ripples on and on and on.
Can we sit with the pain? Give the pain a song? Can we teach others to sit with their pain and give their pain a song, too?
Maybe then, and maybe alongside that, we can also make songs of joy … I feel those coming.
Thank you for this beautiful interview – it’s been a pleasure ❤
You can connect with Mary Bue through website marybue.com, Instagram @marybuemusic, Facebook, X @marybuemusic, Spotify, YouTube @MaryBue, and BandCamp
