Paperback Rider with Anaïs Mitchell, Bonny Light Horseman
A new series featuring musicians reading on the road
BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN’s ANAÏS MITCHELL is my first guest for Paperback Rider, a new series featuring musicians reading on the road. The Venn intersection of books and tour is a fun fit for me.
Pulling from a list of many options, Anaïs picked three book-related and three tour-related questions. This detour from a standard Q&A gives the artist input on the routing.
If you’ve got book/tour questions to suggest for future editions of the series, send them my way. Here’s v1.0 of the list. I’d like it to change and grow as we go.
Enjoy,
🖤AV
ANAÏS MITCHELL is a Vermont-based singer-songwriter and the Tony and Grammy award-winning creator of the Broadway musical Hadestown. Her first book, Working on a Song – The Lyrics of Hadestown, was published by Penguin/Plume in 2020, and Anaïs was named to the prestigious TIME100 list that same year. Dubbed by NPR as “one of the greatest songwriters of her generation,” Mitchell comes from the world of narrative folksong, poetry, and balladry. She has released multiple albums and toured worldwide both as a solo artist and with her band Bonny Light Horseman. Her Grammy-nominated recordings include her self-titled solo album and Bonny Light Horseman’s self-titled debut. BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN’s third album, Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free, is out now on Jagjaguwar. “A generous gift,” says PASTE magazine.
FIRST THINGS FIRST. TELL US WHAT YOU’RE READING AND WHERE YOU GOT IT?
ANAÏS MITCHELL: Like every woman my age I am reading Miranda July’s book All Fours. I’m embarrassed to say I ordered it from Amazon. And then, unfortunately, I left my Amazon copy in a hotel room in Winnipeg (along with my phone charger, ugh) so I’m planning to buy it again on my layover at Chicago O’Hare because I’m desperate to finish.
WHERE ARE YOU NOW AND WHERE DO YOU GO NEXT?
ANAÏS MITCHELL: I’m currently flying home to Vermont from the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and we have a little run in Colorado next.
THREE BOOK QUESTIONS:
LAST BOOK YOU WERE GIFTED WHICH YOU LOVED AND LAST BOOK YOU GAVE AS A GIFT?
ANAÏS MITCHELL: I gave The Middle Passage by James Hollis to my friend Connie when I saw her in London. It’s a Jungian book about midlife that I was turned onto because I follow Maria Popova’s lit blog The Marginalian on Instagram.
Connie (who I gave The Middle Passage to) gave me Eros the Bittersweet by Ann Carson on a previous tour. Similarly a slim volume that packs a ton of wisdom. When I read it I felt like an undergrad reading Marx, like “Oh my god this explains everything,” but instead of capitalism: desire and art.
A BOOK CONNECTED TO A LYRIC?
ANAÏS MITCHELL: A lot of the imagery in Bonny Light Horseman’s “Comrade Sweetheart” comes from Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls. Impossibly romantic / political book. Once I sat next to an old man on an airplane who was reading it. I said, “I loved that, I read it in my twenties!” And he said, “Me too, and now I’m re-reading it. I don’t have time to waste so I’m re-reading all the best books.” We both quoted the same line at the same time and our four eyes filled with tears.
A FAVORITE BOOKSTORE IN A SMALL TOWN?
ANAÏS MITCHELL: There’s an amazing bookstore called The Montague Bookmill in Montague, Massachusetts. Their little catchphrase is: “Books You Don’t Need In A Place You Can’t Find.”
THREE TOUR QUESTIONS (plus a book follow-up)
WHAT WAS THE GODDAMN HEMINGWAY LINE!?
"The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
MOST EMBARRASSING RIDER ITEM?
ANAÏS MITCHELL: I’m not sure who requested this, but on our last tour we were consistently getting a product called Uncrustables which is basically a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in Pop-Tart form. Like a thing for five year olds.
A NICE PERSON YOU MET ON THE ROAD WHO WAS NOT A FAN, NOT AT THE SHOW, AND NOT PART OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?
ANAÏS MITCHELL: We had a great hang in Asheville on our last tour. I was jogging with our bassist Cameron and we went past a huge ceramic studio called Odyssey ClayWorks. There was a potter's wheel on the sidewalk and a guy from the studio offering half-hour lessons. I jogged on a little with Cam and then realized I really needed that lesson, so I jogged back and had a lovely quick lesson with this guy whose name I can’t remember. He was a kind and good teacher and (with consent) put his hands on my hands on the wheel like Patrick Swayze to help me understand how much pressure was needed to center the clay.
WORST STRETCH OF ROAD?
ANAÏS MITCHELL: That part of I-5 in Southern Cali with the slaughterhouses you can smell from the highway.