Artist Spotlight: Scottish Singer-Songwriter Amy Macdonald

My Artist Spotlight posts will feature artists who, in my opinion, appear to be particularly favored by the Muse.

Today's featured artist is Scottish singer/songwriter Amy MacDonald. Her recent album, This Is The Life,has been on almost constant rotation in my car and in my kitchen as of late. She has quickly become one of my favorites.

My Muse

I am an Army wife. This role brings with it unique challenges and expectations that at times can seem insurmountable. For instance, the average Army wife packs up her family's household goods and moves to a new location every 1.5 years, sometimes not even knowing in which hemisphere she and her family will be living until a month or two before. She is required to explain this remarkable state of affairs to non-military friends and family, maintaining the delicate balance between acknowledging its absurdity and affirming its inevitability. Furthermore, she is required to abide for long periods of time in a state of watchfulness and uncertainty, akin to holding one's breath, for her spouse to return home from deployments alive and unharmed. In addition to all of this, every aspect of her life, from the availability of medical care to the television programming she receives, is regulated by beaurocracy.

Whew.

If she is going to write about this life, she decides, she is going to have to invoke the Muses:

Sing to me, O Muses,
Tell of noble deeds and virtue,
Guide my pen and fill my mind with wit,
Or, at the very least, suggest some good topics with which I may entertain myself and others in this most wondrous medium of blogging . . .

I have devoted this blog to Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, because the comic not only serves as the greatest source of inspiration in my writing but also acts, in my opinion, as a significant component of wisdom.

My favorite writer, Flannery O'Connor, observed, "it is well to realize that the maximum amount of seriousness admits the maximum amount of comedy. Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe" (from Mystery and Manners, Farrar, 1962).

And my side of the universe is truly comical, indeed.