Mary Lambert
Chanteuse

Américaine

Christmas Cookies (feat. Wyatt Hermansen) by Mary Lambert
Written by: Aaron Barker

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/marylambertsing
http://www.marylambertsings.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm1uXHPKFGBPJZuMB8gzj4w
https://www.facebook.com/marylambertsings/

Copyright (C) 2020 ML SINGS LLC.

http://vevo.ly/iI0ejv

Ave Maria, featuring Tim Mendonsa on guitar
Produced by Mary Lambert

Happy Holigays EP available now
Written/Produced/Engineered by Mary Lambert in Amherst, MA
Guitar by Tim Mendonsa
Mixed & Mastered by Jonah Cohen
Self-released / Independent / Liberated

I've always loved this song, and never knew how to sing it, but I decided I wanted to make something a little different than my songwriting stuff. I feel very lucky to have Tim Mendonsa accompanying me on guitar, and to have had Jonah Cohen's fantastic ear for mixing and mastering. I'm crazy nervous to be releasing a classical song, but I've been dying to practice my operatic chops, y'all. I didn't use autotune or any tuning software (mostly because I haven't learned how yet LOL), so what you're hearing is an unpitched vocal. I loved making this EP at home, and can't wait to learn how to do more audio things! This was an absolute blast.

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/marylambertsing
Website: http://www.marylambertsings.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marylambertsings
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marylambertsing

Copyright (C) 2020 ML SINGS.

Happy Holigays EP available 11/27
Written/Produced/Engineered by Mary Lambert in Amherst, MA
Mixed & Mastered by Jonah Cohen
Self-released under Tender Heart Records
Video footage filmed by Mary and Wyatt Hermansen

***

Lyrics:
I went down to the frozen creek
Ice like lace on a cold winter sheet
It's been dark for days– haven't seen the light
Tighten my boots and I start to cry

I cannot heal the whole world with a song that I wrote
Tell me what is the magic chord
But if you're alone
and the snow's coming down all around
maybe you're sad
'cause this year's been harder than hell
this song's for you

take a drive, look at the lights
call a friend and ask for help
make some art or sing a tune
it'll all get better soon

I cannot heal the whole world with a song that I wrote
Tell me what is the magic chord
But if you're alone
and the snow's coming down all around
maybe you're sad
'cause this year's been harder than hell
this song's for you

take your meds if you're taking meds
get some rest or eat a snack
read a book or take a bath
it'll all get better soon

I cannot heal the whole world with a song that I wrote
Tell me what is the magic chord
But if you're alone
and the snow's coming down all around
maybe you're sad
'cause this year's been harder than hell
this life's for you

***

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/marylambertsing
Website: http://www.marylambertsings.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marylambertsings/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marylambertsing/
Copyright (C) 2020 ML SINGS.

http://vevo.ly/fdjEwR

50% of profits for Dear Jo will be donated to the Transgender Law Center (25%) and the Ali Forney Center (25%). Buy here - https://marylambert.bandcamp.com/

Dear J.K. Rowling,
For someone who imagined such a staggeringly beautiful world of magic, the limits of your imagination when it comes to humankind are heartbreaking. For trans women and those of us who support them, your views aren’t just hurtful--they're dangerous. You are eloquent and articulate in your convictions, but your arguments are based in fear and they hurt people. You should know better than anyone the power of language, the spellbinding marvel of the perfect phrase, of finding the right combination of words to say exactly what you mean, to change the way people see what is possible in this world just by putting pen to paper.

Over the last year, you have done a masterful job of creating a palatable narrative to cloak transphobia. The arguments, articles, and rhetoric you promote may occasionally draw from the world of science, but they fail to account for the vast realities of our world and what might lie beyond our current understanding. Biological essentialism is transphobia because it doesn’t recognize people as they want and deserve to be seen. Dismissing self identification in regards to one’s gender is eerily similar to conservatives who argued that gay couples wanting to legally marry were infringing upon the sanctity of marriage. All we wanted was to be included. Wielding your influence as if people’s lives weren’t at stake, as if it were just civil discourse, is irresponsible. It is not simply a difference of opinion when you are arguing against the legitimacy and safety of marginalized people.

I know that you want to protect cis women from undue harm, to anticipate the threats that might be waiting around the corner. I'm with you. But what threatens trans women threatens all women. The specter of misogyny is indiscriminate; it is not concerned with chromosomes or transition or medical diagnosis. Recently, a memo from the United States Housing and Urban Development department, which is pursuing a policy that would force trans women into men's homeless shelters, leaked to the media. It instructs shelter employees to look for the physical characteristics that might reveal a person to be a trans woman: “factors such as height, the presence (but not the absence) of facial hair, the presence of an Adam’s apple, and other physical characteristics which, when considered together, are indicative of a person’s biological sex." This policing of women's bodies, surveilling and monitoring them, humiliating them when they seek refuge during a global pandemic, is the result of the kind of biological definitions of womanhood you argue for.

I know you don’t think you’re hurting anyone by saying these things; I know you think that you are defending cis women and lesbians and protecting children from harm and receiving undue backlash as merely a consequence for speaking the truth. I believe that you also know and love trans people. And I imagine you are devastated that we are saying such harsh things about you. I want to level with you, because I see your heart. I used to think that if we could collectively redefine the binary so that trans people might be able to see themselves as just a different kind of woman or a different kind of man, then they wouldn’t need hormones or surgery; a galaxy of gender expression would be accepted and normal. But the issue with a concept like absolute gender utopia is that it doesn’t take into account people’s lived realities, and the way the world exists as it is, right now. Everyone is doing what they can to survive. If you truly love trans people, listen to them.

Your stories shaped my world, and you as a figure, as a creator, as a person, have been a personal model of persistence and strength. When I was coming to grips with the horrors of my early childhood, with being gay and fat and bipolar, I buried myself in the covers with a flashlight and devoured page after page of your brilliance. You saved my life. There were times I wanted so badly to die, but I couldn't because part of me needed to know what happened to Harry Potter. And I know I’m not the only one who has had that experience. Those stories mean so much to the queer community.

You have been--for some of us, through our entire lives--the bellwether of what's possible. You taught us to have the courage to face what's ahead of us even when we might not understand it, even if it feels insurmountable. If you were to tell us that you see trans women as the women they are, you would, in an instant, make the world a warmer and brighter place for them, make their future seem possible, and create a space for us to come together, as women, to steel ourselves and prepare for what's lies ahead. You could, as easily as you breathe, change the world for us again. It would be like magic.

Love,
Mary, a Hufflepuff