Gretchen Peters: Personal Pain As Universal Truth
Gretchen Peters' new album is Hello Cruel World. Gina Binkley hide caption
Gretchen Peters' new album is Hello Cruel World.
Gina BinkleyHear The Music
'Woman on the Wheel"
"Dark Angel"
Country Music Award winner Gretchen Peters had an eventful 2010: The BP oil spill washed up on her doorstep, a good friend committed suicide, and her son announced that he's transgender. The last of those in particular, she says, got her thinking about personal conflict.
"[My son] had withheld a very basic and large truth about himself for a long, long time," Peters says. "And I thought, what's the difference here — except a difference of degree — between him and anyone else? I think all of us withhold truths about ourselves that we think would make other people like us less, or accept us less."
That sentiment and others formed the basis of a new album called Hello Cruel World, released last month. True to its title, the album opens on a down note: "Haven't done as well as I thought I would / I'm not dead, but I'm damaged goods / And it's getting late."
"I think that's something that every single one of us can relate to," she says. "I was craving the truth. And I wanted to tell the truth."