Saints and Sisters
Jack White loves them, Tiesto reckons they’d be better off as electro-pop starlets and hordes of teenage girls long for them to be their big sisters; Celina Murphy tracks down Tegan Quin to she if she can’t make up her own mind about twin sister act TEGAN AND SARA (and maybe settle those pesky Irish bloodline rumours while she’s at it).
Celina Murphy, 24 Nov 2009
“Someone asked me yesterday; “What’s wrong with you guys?”” says an amused Tegan Quin. “Why are you always writing these sad records? ”
When they were 17, it was okay for Canada’s sweethearts of indie rock to be fools in love, I suggest, but the twins Quin turn 30 next year. Surely they’re having more success in the romance stakes these days?
“We’ve definitely gotten better.” Tegan says. “We were both at the end of a five-year relationship. And my grandmother passed away, and that was like a Mom passing away – so we were really experimenting with the ideas of the end of things and death.
She continues: “I think at 29 I know a lot more than I did at 20 and I’d like to think that’s why our records are getting better. We come from a school of thought and a family that believes that you don’t have to be with the same person forever. Love is definitely fluid. I think that potentially this is the one life you get and I don’t want to spend it at home watching TV being miserable.”
A baker’s dozen of these love songs make up Sainthood, a bustling, ‘80s-influenced piece of pop-rock, with a title inspired by fellow Canadian Leonard Cohen.
“Sara was working on a song for a couple of hours,” Tegan explains, “and I was like, ‘OK come on, let’s get going now and record some vocals!’ She started singing and I was like ‘Wow, this is beautiful, these are amazing lyrics, did you write these? They’re so wonderful! You’re a genius!’”
Unfortunately, they turned out to be borrowed from Cohen’s ‘Came So Far For Beauty’. “They were perfect for the song which meant that when we couldn’t get approval to use them, we just couldn’t replace them. The song’s just kind of sitting out there in the ether.” The track may not have made it onto the record, but the name certainly fits; ‘I practiced all my sainthood/ I gave to one and all /But the rumors of my virtue /They moved her not at all’.
“Sonically, I think that we’ve gotten closer and closer.” Tegan adds. ”I think on this record, you compare a song like ‘Northshore’ which is mid ‘90s punk rock to ‘Alligator’ which is kind of like Sara’s version of The Supremes – it’s pretty different. The themes we were working on on this record were very similar. We both were dating and playing with the themes and ideas around relationships and love and lust and love obsession.”
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